We Ditched the Graveyard Early: Chapter 1
by jlluh
Summary: Creeped out by all the tombstones, Harry and Cedric leave the graveyard almost as soon as they arrive. As result, much is different. Not sure of pairings.
1. Chapter 1

Harry and Cedric leave the graveyard in Little Hangleton almost as soon as they arrive. The repercussions of that choice ring across the timeline.

 **Chapter 1: Ditching the Graveyard Early**

The graveyard the tri-wizard cup brought them to was silent and eerie, and the lack of mountains made clear they were far from the school. Harry looked to Cedric. "Is this supposed to be part of the task?"

Cedric bit his lip. "I don't see any tournament personnel. I don't like this at all." He grabbed Harry and grabbed the cup.

A dizzying moment later, they were back in the center of the maze, Cedric throwing the cup aside before they could somehow re-activate it.

Harry said, "What if that was part of the tournament?"

"Then we'll do it later. More importantly, what if it wasn't? That place was spooky, no one told us about any sort of tiebreaker, and if they had one, shouldn't it be on school grounds?"

Harry frowned. He was processing slowly, but he hadn't liked being unexpectedly portkeyed to a graveyard either.

Cedric said, "This whole tournament's been fishy. What, with you being in it."

Harry stared at him and stepped away from the cup. A large part of him was still screaming to take the cup, that it would be horribly embarrassing to stop in the middle of a task because he was afraid it wasn't really a task, but all the bad situations he'd been in, plus a year of listening to Professor Moody yell about Constant Vigilance brought caution to mind.

Professor Moody came around the corner, freezing as he saw Cedric and Harry at the center of the maze, the cup not far away.

"What are you waiting for?" said Moody.

Harry opened his mouth to tell Moody about the graveyard, but Cedric spoke first. "What are you doing in the maze?"

"Security," said Moody. "Can't be too careful. So let's get this over with. Take the cup, Harry."

Harry took a step, but stopped, staring at Moody.

Cedric said, "Why should Harry take the cup? I got to it first."

The older boy met his eyes wearing a pleading expression, so Harry said, "That's right. He beat me to it. He grabbed the cup and disappeared, but he reappeared not even a minute later."

Cedric said, "The cup took me to a graveyard. I didn't like it."

"Just part of the challenge," Moody said.

"Well then," said Cedric, taking a step toward the cup.

"Stop," shouted Moody. "Harry, take the cup."

Cedric raised his wand, and said, _"Reducto_ _."_

The cup blew into pieces.

Moody screamed, then screamed again. _"Avada Kedavra_ _!_ _"_

Cedric dodged the green light while casting, _"Bombarda Maxima."_

Moody dodged, the hedge behind him exploded, and Moody had to shield against Harry's blasting curse.

Cedric took the moment's respite to shoot red sparks into the air, calling for help.

Harry didn't know what was happening, or why Moody was attacking them, but it was happening, and he'd been attacked by Defense Professors before. If they worked together, they could do this. Two wands were greater than one.

Four stone wolves rose from the earth around Moody and ran at Cedric.

Moody sent a string of Stunning Spells at Harry, who dodged some and blocked others with protego, his shield cracking with each hit.

Cedric got a wolf with a blasting curse, but then the other three were on him, and he was desperately keeping them at bay with shields.

Harry's shield broke, and he dodged the stupefy so fast he fell.

Moody said, _"Imperio."_

The near familiar pleasure washed over him, the sense that everything was alright, but it was stronger than ever before. Moody was serious this time.

Moody said, "You will come with me to the edge of the maze, and you will say that nothing is wrong."

If he gave in, Cedric would die, and whatever horrible thing Moody wanted to do would happen.

 _"_ _Reducto_ _"_ cast Harry, then _"reducto!"_ again.

Moody shielded against the first, but the second was aimed not at Moody but at the wolves attacking Cedric, destroying one, throwing another off balance. Cedric destroyed it, and the other, immediately dodged another Killing Curse, and hit back with bombarda as Harry cast another reducto.

Harry was growing tired, fearful he wouldn't be able to cast many more spells.

Two Aurors arrived on broomsticks, responding no doubt to the red sparks. One of them cast a shield between the combatants, and Moody sent a curse at the Auror, who rolled to avoid it.

Then both Aurors were casting at Moody, who stepped back and back again, looking increasingly wild.

And Dumbledore stepped appeared at the edge of the area. His voice boomed even as his spells shielded Moody from the barrage. "What is the meaning of this?!"

Harry screamed a warning but knew he was too late. Moody turned, the green light of the Killing Curse headed straight for the unsuspecting Dumbledore.

A plinth of earth rose, the air itself seemed to explode, the Aurors on broomsticks shot stunning spells, and when the dust cleared, Moody was bound and gagged, his wand in Dumbledore's hand, the Headmaster's face a study in confusion.

Cedric shouted a concise report while Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "The cup was a portkey to a graveyard, and Professor Moody wanted Harry to grab it. He was willing to kill me and cast the Imperius Curse on Harry."

Harry offered his shout agreement, and Dumbledore's bright blue eyes met his own. Harry had a strange feeling, images flashing quickly through his mind, and Dumbledore frowned. The larger remaining pieces of the cup rose from the ground. "Smart then, to break it."

Dumbledore flicked his wand again. Moody was transformed into a small grey rock, which Dumbledore pocketed. He said to the Aurors, "Let's make this look as close to normal as possible.

A pair of galleons from Dumbledore's pocket were turned into a cup, which he tossed onto the ground. "Take it, whichever of you would rather be known as Tri-Wizard champion. It is not a portkey. Act calm and say nothing of this. Whatever plot is afoot, we'd better not tip off the plotters more than we must."

Harry made eye-contact with Cedric. After fighting for his life against the Defense Professor, it felt very strange to be considering again the glory of winning the tournament. "Same as before?" he said.

"Sure," said Cedric, also a little pale, and they approached the cup.

Dumbledore said, "You intend to tie?"

They nodded, and Dumbledore spoke to the Aurors, who were hovering a few feet up on broomsticks. "We're going with the boys to the stadium. We'll explain that they tied and the portkey malfunctioned. We'll get Fudge, and we'll get the boys to my office as quickly as feasible without tipping our hand in a game we don't know the rules of."

Harry and Cedric grabbed the fake cup together.

#

#

An hour later, the (somewhat confused) roaring of the crowd already a distant memory, they were making witness statements to a woman named Amelia Bones, who seemed to be both very important and very disturbed.

They were then kept in a room with four Aurors and Professor McGonagall while Amelia Bones, Dumbledore, and Harry didn't know who all else went somewhere. Harry supposed they'd gotten the location of the graveyard.

Cedric was allowed to talk with his father, then had a private talk with Professor Dumbledore once the later had returned, looking very tense.

Cedric left, and it was Harry's turn for a private talk with the Headmaster.

"Lemon drop?"

Harry took a few. One of the Aurors had brought him a sandwich a glass of milk, but he was tired and hungry despite that.

"Sir, why did Moody attack us?"

"It wasn't Alastor Moody who attacked you. In fact, this entire year, it wasn't Alastor Moody who taught you."

"I don't understand."

"I have made a grievous and shameful mistake, one which nearly cost us everything. Which nearly killed you and returned Voldemort to power. This summer, Alastor Moody was captured by Bartemius Crouch Jr., who, between legilimency, veritaserum and Polyjuice Potion, did a regrettably excellent job impersonating him.

"But not a perfect job. I'd hardly seen him in ten years. That he'd changed was no surprise. If at times I thought he'd changed in ways I wouldn't have expected, well, that was hardly beyond the realm of human experience. That he might not be Alastor Moody never occurred to me all."

Dumbledore continued, "Alastor Moody himself spent the entire year locked in his own trunk in Moody's office. His hair was used for Polyjuice Potion, and he was continually interrogated so Crouch Jr. could provide whatever details Moody ought to know."

"But what, the point of it all, why..."

Dumbledore said, "In order to resurrect Lord Voldemort."

Harry gasped.

"I've cut off many of his pathways to resurrection, but I freely confess that Voldemort's knowledge of the Darkest Arts surpasses my own. It seems he intended a ritual which would've used the bones of his father. We've removed those, and those of other close relatives on his father's side. His mother's body, we've yet to find."

"It also required the blood of his enemy. I suppose there are only two people he thought worth considering." He pointed to himself and to Harry. "We are lucky that the ritual apparently required the blood to be fresh and taken very much against your will, and with your approximate knowledge of the purpose-that makes the victory more complete, you see. The date is also significant. Three days after the summer solstice, three days being a famously significant time period in resurrections, the summer solstice being the longest day of the year. Though there are other dates that might work, that's likely the best for it, and Voldemort has always placed great store in magical symbolism. Through the Imperius Curse, he was able to get the day of the final task to coincide."

Harry said, "Why not just grab me, and hit me with a portkey?"

"Hogwarts' wards prevent portkeys from operating. However, the event planners wanted the cup to be a portkey which would take the winner directly to the stadium. As Headmaster, I am master of Hogwarts' wards. I keyed the cup to them. Even so, I had to temporarily deactivate a layer. He changed the destination of my portkey, interfering with it as little as possible so he wouldn't break it.

"I've been to the graveyard. Voldemort had already fled when I arrived, and the trail quickly went cold, though I expect to be out there once more tomorrow. While there, I noticed a ward on the graveyard. It was intended to allow portkeying in but not out, but it didn't function properly. We may be thankful that Voldemort has been reduced to relying on Pettigrew, who is not the most competent of wizards."

"Peter Pettigrew?" said Harry.

"He fled to Voldemort. An unfortunate occurrence, made doubly so by the fact that Minister refuses to entertain the possibility that Pettigrew is alive, which rather undercuts our ability to conduct a manhunt for him. Thankfully, Ms. Bones is a flexible woman, fully capable pursuing a man she officially believes to be dead."

That was important, Pettigrew was important, Sirius needed the Ministry to accept that Pettigrew was alive, but something else was more important. Harry said, "Sir, if Cedric hadn't made us go back, or if Pettigrew had made the ward right, Voldemort would be alive again?"

"As powerful as ever, perhaps. And you and Cedric would likely both be dead. It is disturbing how much we owe to the good sense of Cedric Diggory."

"He oughta get a thousand house points," said Harry, sick laughter rising up. "If Voldemort returned..." He shivered.

If Harry had grabbed the cup alone, without Cedric, he would've stubbornly stayed in the graveyard waiting to find out why he was there, and Voldemort would be back. He was sure of it.

His first year, he'd been trying to save the Philosopher's Stone, and he'd always sort of insisted that he had, but in retrospect, Quirrell had been stumped by the mirror. Dumbledore had clearly been setting a trap for Voldemort, and he, Harry, had spoiled it. He'd actually ended up helping Voldemort, probably, and had nearly enabled him to get the stone.

His second year he'd killed the basilisk and destroyed Riddle's diary, but really Fawkes had done most of the work, and it all would've been over much more quickly and without, perhaps, a single human petrification if he'd just told Dumbledore about the voices he heard in the walls. He'd spent weeks risking people's lives because he hadn't wanted to embarrass himself. It was only luck that no one had gotten killed.

His third-year he'd saved Buckbeak and Sirius, but Hermione had had at least as much to with that as he had, and if he'd been a little more sensible, Pettigrew would've been captured.

Now in his fourth-year, a plot to resurrect Voldemort had been spoiled, but only because Peter Pettigrew was incompetent and Cedric was generally great. And the plot had been dependent on Harry in the first place. And now that he knew what the plot was, he realized that he'd had all the pieces to figure out that Moody was an impostor.

Third and fourth year both, the map had told him something that had seemed so impossible he'd hardly bothered investigating it. If he'd taken twenty minutes to go to Dumbledore's office and tell the headmaster about it, Crouch would've been caught, and quite early in the year.

Most students, in the same bad situations, would've done a better job. Many students, at least. Cedric, certainly.

"Sir, you know, I have a map?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Remus Lupin mentioned briefly at the end of your third year. Crouch spoke of it during the interrogation. Some ingenious application of the Homonculus charm, I gather. Crouch took it from you." He took the battered square of parchment from inside his robes and laid it at the end of the desk. "I should return it to you."

Harry took a deep breath. "We saw that Barty Crouch was wandering around, but it didn't occur to us that it might be Barty Crouch Jr., and we saw that the map never showed Moody anywhere but in his office, but we just thought it wasn't working right or something."

Dumbledore paled. "The map is that good? It showed Crouch as Crouch even though he was under Polyjuice? And it showed Moody even when he was in a space expanded trunk?"

Harry nodded. "It even showed Pettigrew in my third year, when he was in his rat form."

Dumbledore needed a little effort to smile. "Harry, I'm not upset, but in the future, that's the sort of discrepancy you might mention to me. If you don't feel comfortable coming to my office, you can simply owl me."

Harry said, "I think you should have the map." He didn't want to give up the map. But Voldemort had nearly just come back, and if Dumbledore had had the map, it probably wouldn't have come close to happening. "You tap it with your wand and say 'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.' Then the map appears."

Slowly, Dumbledore did just that, and the lines crawled across the parchment. The Headmaster bent over it, the brightness of the lights increasing at a wave of his hand, his finger coming down on the Headmaster's office, showing Harry and Dumbledore exactly where they were. He quickly gained mastery of it, move the perspective around to get better looks at different floors.

Dumbledore said, "Who else knows about this?"

"Hermione and Ron of course. Lupin and Sirius. Snape a little, but he doesn't exactly know what it is."

"I see," said Dumbledore. "I'll have to ask Remus and Sirius why they did not tell me more of it." His wand ran over the map. "It's missing four secret passages, but it shows one of which I was unaware until I found out how Sirius had gotten in. I suppose it doesn't show the Chamber of Secrets?"

"No. I think it can only show places the makers knew about."

Dumbledore said, "This is almost too much information. I'm not sure it's right for a Headmaster of a school to be able to track this closely what students and staff are up to. But clearly, recent events have shown, it might be necessary.

"I will get this back to you Harry, I think. I'll investigate how it works, make my own, and create restrictions as to its use so it cannot be abused. Hopefully, when school restarts, I'll be done. How do I close it?"

"You top it with your wand and say 'Mischief Managed.'"

Dumbledore snorted, and did so, the parchment growing blank once more. "It's makers must've been quite the characters."

"Sure," said Harry. "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Lupin, Pettigrew, Sirius and my dad." And didn't realize until he saw Dumbledore's expression that Dumbledore hadn't known.

Dumbledore rubbed his temples. "I should've known. In addition to becoming unregistered animagi... I sincerely hope there have never before been any other students who've pulled so much wool over my eyes."

Harry said, "I'm surprised you're surprised."

"The false impression of my omniscience leads me to know less than I otherwise would. Perhaps cutting the beard would help."

Harry winced. He'd just been thinking about everything he should've told Dumbledore and hadn't. Of course others must've done that same.

If his parents had told Dumbledore about Pettigrew being the real secret keeper, Sirius would've never gone to Azkaban. Pettigrew would probably still be there instead.

Likely enough, his mother, embarrassed, had fibbed to Dumbledore about how good her relationship with her sister was. It seemed like something Harry would do.

Harry said, "What about Pettigrew?"

"Gone before we arrived. From muggles in the area, we've gained a few memories of Peter Pettigrew, all from a distance or with his face obscured. Still, combined with Crouch's confession, the testimony of you, your friends, and Mr. Lupin, as well as an offer from Sirius Black just sent to the ministry offering to submit to public questioning under veritaserum, the Ministry has a clear-cut choice between admitting something has gone wrong or engaging in a substantial cover-up and smear campaign against the credibility of the witnesses. As such, I expect them to waffle."

Harry said, "If we go public-"

Dumbledore said, "Then the Ministry will be egged into that smear campaign. A smear campaign against three minors, a werewolf, a Death Eater, and the man accused. Fudge does not want to admit to his mistakes. He would've had Crouch kissed if not for Amelia and my intervention. If Voldemort had indeed returned, I suspect he would've done it anyway, just to deny the reality of failure. We can and will have Sirius exonerated, but it's going to take time and careful politicking."

Dumbledore looked frustrated. And old and tired. Which was odd, because the day was a victory. A plot of Voldemort had been spoiled. His most powerful active servant had been captured. New evidence as to Pettigrew's continued existence had been acquired.

But the day had also exposed a great many failures.

Harry said, "What can I do to become useful?"

Dumbledore made a reassuring smile and opened his mouth as if to insist that Harry already was useful, a wonderful young man coming along nicely. But he stopped, took a long, careful look at Harry, and said, "Learn occlumency. There are secrets you ought to know, as they involve you, important secrets, but I'm reluctant to disclose them to a fourteen-year-old with an unsecured mind."

"Occlumency?"

Professor Dumbledore handed Harry a slim book. "Read this within the first two weeks of summer, and practice the exercises daily."

"I'll get in trouble with the ministry."

Dumbledore shook his head. "It's not magic, exactly. It's a mental technique that makes one's mind safer against magical interrogation. Legilimency. You'll read about it. Consider it summer homework.

"If you want to become useful, do your other summer homework too, and do it well. Prepare for your OWLs. Work hard in every class, and don't neglect theory. You don't yet realize the practical importance of understanding theory, but trust me when I say that no great wizard could be more than good without it." Four more books appeared in Dumbledore's hands, and he gave them to Harry. One on the theory of potions, one on the theory of transfiguration, one on the theory of Dark Magic and the Defense Against, and one on the theory of magic itself.

"Read these. Understand them. When thinking about them hurts your head, continue thinking. Do not withdraw. Running from the pain attendant to correcting one's misconceptions is a common yet horrible sin. Little is more injurious."

Dumbledore's accustomed twinkle was gone. There was a different air about him. He was still the kindly headmaster, but for the first time Harry saw that Dumbledore was also the man who'd waged wars against Grindelwald and Voldemort, and had put down an unknown number of lesser Dark Lords in between, as a sort of extra-governmental warlord.

"Familiarize yourself with the basics of runes and arithmancy. That's your summer homework. When you come back, practice hard and study hard. There will likely be seminars on special topics. Attend them. As part of your morning or nightly routine, choose a spell you know well, and practice it wordlessly for a few minutes every day. Then spend a few minutes trying to do something wandlessly. Lighting a candle or levitating a feather, perhaps. Accomplish all that, and you will be on the way to usefulness."

It hurt, for Dumbledore to so casually suggest that at present he wasn't even on the way to usefulness.

Dumbledore said, "But the two most important matters are these. First, you must grow up. For a fourteen-year-old, you are not especially immature, but it would serve you well, if, by this time next year, you were especially mature for a fifteen-year-old. That does not mean acting as if you are older than you are. Have fun. Be witty, be humble, be good, and be excellent in all your interactions with others." For a moment, the twinkle entered Dumbledore's eyes. "Dating would not be a bad idea. It is by living life with intensity, and then reflecting morally upon it, that you will mature, not by becoming an overly serious bore.

"Second, and this is key, you must embrace magic. You never really have."

Harry protested. "I love magic."

Dumbledore poked the left lens of Harry's glasses with his finger. "It smudged. Why? Check the library and you'll find anti-smudging spells. They're well within your ability. All sorts of charms are. If you're wearing these every day, they ought to be covered in magic. Subtly charmed personal objects aren't against the statute. And your muggle clothes. You've mended them, but you've never attempted to resize them or refresh the color or any of that. Why?"

"Well. I." Why hadn't he?

"Some muggle-borns feel guilty using magic for the simple things, as if they fear to run out of it and have none left. In reality, the more you use, the more you have. Embrace magic. Breathe it. Work it into every fiber of your being. Then, perhaps, you will find your limits."

Dumbledore smiled, and Harry was facing the kindly Headmaster once more. "If there's nothing else I can help you with, Harry, I expect you're exhausted and ready for bed."

Harry got up, took a step toward the door.

Dumbledore said, "Your books, Harry."

"Right." He picked them up. Five books, counting the book on occlumency.

Dumbledore said, "I expect you to return those to me at the start of the coming school year."

Harry said, "My relatives. They don't like me reading my magic books over the summer."

Dumbledore's expression flickered, but he said, "Embrace magic, and you will find that circumventing a few muggles is not such a difficult task, even without the use of your wand."

Harry took the books.

#

#

The day the Hogwarts express was to leave, Harry sat on his bed considering two trunks.

The first he'd gotten from Hagrid and filled with dirt till it had the right weight. The second was his own trunk, and he was pleased with it.

Most of what a person saw or heard did not attract a person's attention but hung in the mental and sensory background. The Notice-Me-Not charm was a minor compulsion magic that kept details there unless something happened to bring one's attention to them.

It could backfire against skilled wizards, who might notice the compulsion, but it was bully against muggles.

He'd cast it on his real trunk, and on everything in his real trunk. He also had a locket necklace with a weak Notice-Me-Not on it, and one on an off-white sticker he'd put on his door.

 _"Reducio,"_ Harry cast, and the trunk shrank till it was the size of a harmonica. He picked it up, and it weighed little more. Getting so he could cast it at that level had taken hours of practice, what with the trunk containing all these separate items, some of them magical, but he was getting it.

He handed the miniature trunk to George, who tapped it and cast a few detection spells Harry didn't know but should probably learn. "Should hold for two or three days," said George.

Harry smiled and tapped the lenses of his glasses, which was fast becoming a mannerism of his. Anti-smudging charms had turned out to be at the level of a second-year charm, and charms to keep glasses from falling off weren't much harder. While getting the unbreakable charm to play nice with the other charms was beyond him without more practice and research than he had time for, the basic durability charm he'd learned as second-year hadn't caused any trouble at all.

Why hadn't he cast the durability charm on his glasses the day he'd learned it? Why hadn't he done any of this before? It would've taken a lot more effort, but he could've done it all as a third-year. Heck, he could've gotten older students do it for him as a first or second-year.

Perhaps he was being a little unfair to himself in concluding that his problem was stupidity, but he was still shuddering every time it occurred to him that his failure to go to Dumbledore about what he saw on the map had nearly resulted in Voldemort resurrecting.

He'd skimmed the books Dumbledore had loaned him, especially the books on Defense and Occlumency, but overall that was a project for the summer, when he couldn't practice magic. With a few minutes to kill before Ron came got out of the loo, he again tried casting Protego without an incantation.

He felt the magic welling up, but trying to cast a spell without saying the incantation felt like trying to walk into a room while holding the door closed.

Fred said, "Just keep at it. Took us months to start to get it. And reading the theory actually helped."

Harry nodded. There was a chapter on non-verbal magic in _The Character of Magic_ , the book on magical theory in general, and according to it the need for an incantation had less to do with the nature of magic than with the nature of wizards, but so far reading that hadn't helped.

Over the last week, he'd worked a bit on his defense spells, and on transfiguration, remembering how Cedric, Krum and the fake Moody had all used it to good effect, but, other than preparing everything he needed to go back to the Dursleys, he'd spent most of his time participating in the usual end of term activities and relaxing with friends.

And listening to rumors, of course.

People knew that Barty Crouch Jr. had killed his father and had tried to interfere with the tournament somehow, and they were generally of the impression that Moody had been in the hospital due to injuries sustained in stopping him, and Cedric had done something or another, for which he'd received fifty house points, on top of the fifty points for his success in the tournament, enough to win Hufflepuff the cup.

All Harry would say was that he'd heard some talk about some die-hard Death Eaters trying to bring Voldemort back to life, but it hadn't worked. He didn't know much more, really.

Harry took a bag off his desk and tossed it to George.

"Isn't this your winnings?"

Five-hundred galleons. The tournament's prize, split with Cedric. "I want you to have it. What you guys said about Bagman not paying you back... This is a gift, not a loan. I won't tell you guys the story, but I don't deserve anything for the tournament. Cedric and I touched the cup at the same time, but I didn't really tie.

"But you-"

"Just take it. Bagman tried to help me. To make his bet work out. This belongs to you more than to me. Use it for your joke shop. If you need any more, if this isn't enough, come to me. You know I've got money, but that'll be a loan, not a gift, and I'll expect to make a profit."

Fred opened his mouth to argue but stopped as Ron came out of the loo. Harry waved bye to the twins, joined Hermione, and the three headed to the station together. Soon they were on the Hogwarts express once more.

Harry bought a few pumpkin pasties and used Wingardium Leviosa to hold them up as he ate them.

Ron said, "Blimey Harry, you're taking it a bit far lately."

Harry said, "Dumbledore says I have to-

"Embrace magic," the other two finished for him.

Harry took another bite of pumpkin pasty.

Hermione said, "Doesn't it feel, a little, I don't know, lazy to use magic for eating?"

Harry looked at her incredulously, the pumpkin pasty bobbing up and down in the air. "Are you joking? How is this easier than eating like normal? It's way harder."

Hermione frowned. Ron said, "You're being a bit of a prat with how much you're practicing lately."

Hermione said, "Well I think it's wonderful he's taking his studies seriously."

The two of them argued, Hermione not quite but nearly taking Harry's side.

Harry loosed a chocolate frog. The bouncy little thing dodged his first Levitation Charm, and his second Levitation Charm picked up Hermione's book, but his third caught the frog mid-hop.

An exercise in speed and precision.

He brought it over to himself with wafting motions of his wand, struggling a little to control the direction of the charm, tossed it in the air, hit it with a weak Finite to end its animation spell, then caught with another levitation charm just before it would've hit the floor.

He brought it up and ate it out of the air.

Ron said, "Mental, Harry."

"It's fun. Try it."

"Barmy," said Ron, but gave it a try, struggling to control his pumpkin pasty. Just a first-year spell, but the pasty bobbed one way or the other whenever Ron leaned forward to bite the pasty.

"Surprisingly hard to control, right?" said Harry. "Good thing Rita isn't here, or there'd be another article about how I'm cracked."

Hermione said, "Ms. Skeeter won't be bothering us anymore." Hermione held up a glass jar holding a beetle and some leaves. Hermione lowered her voice. "It's Rita Skeeter. She's an unregistered animagus."

Harry and Ron stared as Hermione explained how she'd figured out how Skeeter was finding out all those secrets, and how she'd caught the beetle in the hospital wing. "And I've told her she's to keep her quill to herself for a whole year. See if she can't break the habit of writing horrible lies about people."

"Rather than that," said Harry, "she could write something useful." He frowned, remembering what Dumbledore had said about not egging Fudge on. "She should write a series of articles on the unconvicted prisoners of Azkaban. About how, during and shortly after the war, some people were placed in Azkaban without the normal process. Probably, she should say that it was a necessary choice, then, but it's past time that we re-examined all those cases and made sure that no one who's innocent was put away."

Hermione looked speculatively at the beetle. "You're thinking of Snuffles."

"She shouldn't pay any particular attention to Snuffles' case. For now at least. But she shouldn't ignore it either. And to be clear, it's not Fudge's fault." His mind canvassed through the available options. "If it's anyone's fault, it's Barty Crouch's." That was even true, even if it felt bad to speak ill of the dead. "Now Fudge has a glorious opportunity to redress any wrongs of the past war and prove that he's one of Britain's greatest Ministers."

Hermione said, "Harry, that's brilliant."

He shrugged. "I've been thinking a lot about how to help Snuffles."

The rest of the ride passed companionably, Harry stealing frequent glances at Rita's jar and feeling a warm glow.

The train arrived, Harry pulled the fake trunk from the rack, patted the real trunk in his pocket, made his goodbyes, passed through the barrier, and walked with Uncle Vernon in silence to the car.

:::

Yeah, I know, I should be working on updating Polymagus, not starting something new. Eh. The new chapter of Polymagus should be out in a few days.

Unlike with Polymagus, I actually will care a little here about keeping the characters consistent with the characters in the book, but Harry not being traumatized by Cedric's death should result in him developing differently.

I suppose this first chapter might be taken as a bit of Harry bashing, but it's Harry who's doing it.

It's odd to me that "Harry escapes Little Hangleton before he can be used for Voldemort's resurrection" isn't one of the most common tropes of HP FF.


	2. Chapter 2: Dumbledore and Dursleys

**Chapter 2: Dumbledore and Dursleys**

Harry's objections to his fake trunk being locked in the cupboard under the stairs were sufficient to make them think he'd tried but insufficient to succeeding. He thought that if he'd really pushed, he would've gotten to keep everything, just like last year. Instead, he'd pushed for freedom of the house, freedom to let Hedwig come and go as he liked, freedom to keep his wand, and a decrease in chores instead.

That settled, he'd gone straight to his room (which, this summer, was not going to be locked from the outside) shut the door and opened the window.

He'd taken the shrunken trunk out of his pocket and put it against the wall.

Two nights later, a soft fwooping woke him as the trunk returned to full size, and Harry got busy.

He put on the locket he'd made with Hermione, the most advanced product he hadn't bought or borrowed. When the locket was closed, the Notice-Me-Not was inactive. When it was open, the Notice-Me-Not engaged. Hopefully, his relatives would ignore him. Forget to think about him most of the time, even.

He applied the off-white Notice-Me-Not sticker to the outside of the door. He and Hermione thought that it ought to cover the whole room, and even, to some extent, the concept of the room.

He took the wizard's lock out of his trunk and attached it to the door. The room would only open for him. His secure little castle. Next was making it livable.

He took a spray from his trunk. Formula 509. Quite similar to the muggle household cleaners, except he only had to spray it around the room, and all the dirt and dust went away without him wiping a single thing, leaving only a fresh pine scent. He'd gotten it from Dobby, who'd assured him it wouldn't attract the ire of the Ministry.

Then he got the bedding out. Taken from Hogwarts, sheets, blankets and a mattress pad that somehow turned the uneven, pop-springed old mattress that Dursleys had given him into what had to the most comfortable bed in the house.

It wasn't stealing, since he'd return it all to Hogwarts at the start of the year.

Finally, he looked through the rest of his trunk for a while, glorying in the fact that he had his stuff, then he went to bed.

That night, he had a strange dream.

He was sitting in a chair. He could see the tip of his wand, only it wasn't quite his wand. Peter Pettigrew was standing out a window, looking nervous.

He spoke. "Are you of so little faith, Wormtail?

Wormtail looked away from the window. "Of course not, master."

"Setbacks occur in war. One plan failed, another will succeed. I am immortal, after all."

Wormtail said, not quietly enough, "That makes one of us."

He considered cruciating the fool. There was a chance that Wormtail would attempt to capture him and bring him to the Ministry, or hit him with a killing curse. Frightened rats made strange moves. Torturing the rat might cow him, but it also might drive the rat to take action.

"It does. It would be unwise to forget it." He let hang the implication that he would resurrect eventually, whether Pettigrew helped him or not. And would deal harshly with betrayal. That ought to counteract Pettigrew's nerves.

But he was nervous too. His nerves centered around the word 'Dumbledore.'

As if the thought had summoned the man, one of his wards tripped.

He said, "We are leaving immediately. Lift me."

Pettigrew's eyes lit with understanding, and the miserable excuse for his wizard was out the door in a shot, midway into his rat transformation.

He tried to apparate, though he could hardly manage it in his current form, and he bumped hard against the ward. Struggling with his weak, ungainly limbs, he grabbed the portkey he always kept near himself, and that failed as well.

His wards, though not what he would've made if he were himself, were of decent quality, and someone was cutting through them like an axe through butter.

Few wizards could do that, and only one of them was likely to be in France.

He hissed, "Nagini, flee."

The large snake wriggled into a prepared hole in the wall, and he began to scream, vision red and black, in agony that surpassed the Cruciatus.

Leaving one's body was never pleasant.

The wall exploded, brick and Nagini's tattered corpse crashing into the far wall, Dumbledore stepping through.

Too late, he thought. He was already spirit once more, immaterial, unharmable, quickly leaving.

A white light flashed from Dumbledore's wand, seeming little more than a Lumos Maxima, yet what it brought was worse than pain.

Harry woke up.

It was early morning, dawn on the horizon, and his scar hurt as if it had been cut, but otherwise he felt fine. Better than fine.

He looked at it in the mirror in the loo. It was red and inflamed, but the rest of him felt excellent. Voldemort had hated that white light, but the memory of it didn't bother him.

He walked quietly out the house, went for a jog around the neighborhood, pushing himself a little, wishing he had better sneakers.

Twenty minutes and he was back, running through the shower, then locking himself in his room. Hagrid had not, unfortunately, had a wizarding tent like Harry had used during the World Cup, but his other camping equipment was a life saver.

Harry poured a glass of water from the hundred-gallon-jug, and, from the food preserver, took two sausages, two Danish pastries and some sort of vegetable smoothy Harry wasn't thrilled by but Dobby had insisted on. The house-elves had proven enthusiastic.

Combine that with the self-vanishing chamber pot, and Harry hardly had to leave the room unless he wanted to.

Over breakfast, Harry wrote a letter.

 _Dear_ _Professor_ _Dumbledore,_

 _I had a dream. The furry little traitor was there, and so was Quirrel's old head-scratcher, and a big snake. Then you arrived. You made a light that Quirrel's old head-scratcher didn't like. There's more, but I don't want to say it in a letter._

 _You know how to reach me if you want to,_

 _Boy-Who-Gets-Into-Messes_

Breakfast eaten and Hedwig sent off, Harry lay on his bed reading _Mind's Mortar_ , the book on occlumency.

The authors seemed afraid that if you were traumatized, grief-stricken, or otherwise unstable, you should recover before attempting it. A lot of warning about how learning the ability to hide memories was dangerous for people who had memories they desperately wanted to forget. You might accidentally lock them away and never be able to find them again.

Harry made himself a promise he wouldn't bury any memories about the Dursleys or his various adventures, but he was more bothered by the book's claim that occlumency wasn't for everyone. He didn't match its description of the prototypical occlumens.

Disappointed, he read _Dark Arts and Pure Hearts_ for a while, which was much closer to interesting. He'd never had any idea of why emotional states were so important in Defense class, and he thought a lot about how a Patronus used happiness, protego used a desire to protect yourself, and the Killing Curse required an intense and remorseless desire to kill.

Sometime after lunch, Hedwig flew through his open window bearing a letter.

 _Interesting. I should be by in two or three weeks. We'll talk then, unless you have an urgent problem. I don't know how much you saw, but I regret to report that both the furry little traitor and Professor Quirrell's old head-scratcher are still at large in the world, if worse for the wear._

 _I hope your summer reading is going well. Particularly the mental aspect of it._

 _Fidwitly, Dumbledore._

Harry returned to the book on occlumency. The first exercise was to sit still and think of nothing.

Harry thought of nothing. And of how thinking of nothing was interesting and might make him an occlumens, and meditation seemed like something a martial artist would learn in a movie. Then he realized he wasn't thinking of nothing anymore, so he went back to that, but quickly began thinking of how cool it would be to be a master occlumens, and how impressed some pretty girl would be when she found out after the ability somehow allowed him to save her life.

With a disgusted sigh, he noticed what he was thinking of, picked up Dark Arts and Pure Hearts, realizing that this summer, reading thick books on magical theory would be a method of procrastination.

#

#

Seventeen days later, with Uncle Vernon at work, Dudley at play, and Aunt Petunia attending a meeting of the homeowner's association, and Harry was putting his fingers to his toes.

Due to boredom, a need to move his body or go mad, and an increasing preoccupation with Dumbledore's suggestion that he date more in the coming year, he'd been exercising. A quick jog most mornings and evenings, pull-ups on the bar at the park. A daily routine of stretches, push-ups, sit-ups, lunges and squats in his room.

He didn't belong shirtless on a magazine cover, but seeing his muscles become a little bigger and more defined day-by-day was surprisingly satisfying.

A knock at the door rang unnaturally loud in his ears. He grabbed his wand and crept carefully down the stairs, though he was not really worried.

He saw through the peephole what he'd been expecting, and opened the door. "Professor Dumbledore, it's an honor to have you. My relatives aren't home, which is a bit of luck. Would you like some tea?"

"Luck has nothing to do with their absence, Harry, and thank you for your kind offer.

Harry soon came out of the kitchen with two teacups, milk, and a tea kettle holding Aunt Petunia's best tea (which he wasn't supposed to touch).

They drank, Harry noting how aggressively out of place Dumbledore looked in his purple suit with red stitching, Dumbledore noting that the pictures on the wall did not include Harry.

Dumbledore said, "How has your summer been thus far?"

"It's been great. They ignore me. Half the time, they forget I'm here."

Dumbledore said, "While I hesitate to call that great, I'm glad the situation has improved. I'd wondered if I ought to speak to them."

Harry said, "I wouldn't want to disrupt them when things are going so well."

Dumbledore said, "In the politics of your household, I shall let you be my guide. Now, if you don't mind, pleasant as this sitting room may be, I confess myself curious to see where you actually reside."

Harry wasn't eager to show the man his room, but he led Dumbledore upstairs, very happy that he'd already picked up his laundry and put it in the wash.

Entering the room, he kicked a stray sock under the bed.

Harry sat on the trunk, leaving the bed for Dumbledore, since he didn't have a chair and that was the nicer seat.

Dumbledore closed the door and conjured two fluffy purple armchairs, which took up nearly all the free space in the room.

Harry sat on the closer one, embarrassed about what he'd been thinking a moment ago, and embarrassed of his shabby room in general. At least it was clean, and the books on the bed gave mute testimony to his diligence.

Dumbledore cast several spells as he took his seat. "This house is already warded exceptionally well, and with this we can speak with complete freedom. Tell me about your dream."

So Harry told him, reciting every detail. "The weird part was that I was in his head a little, thinking his thoughts. It wasn't like that before. He's afraid of you Professor, and whatever that spell you cast at the end was, he didn't like it."

There was a sadness in the smile that Harry thought he might actually understand. "I'd imagine not. But I achieved more than simply giving Voldemort an unpleasant experience.

"We separated Pettigrew from Voldemort, and I doubt he'll be eager to seek Voldemort out. He did not enjoy his time in Lord Voldemort's service, and he ought to be rethinking his theory that Voldemort will keep him safe."

Harry said, "Do you think you'll catch him?"

"He is beyond the Ministry's jurisdiction, and Amelia must practice great compartmentalization in pursuing him. I myself am spread thin as it is. And the last thing we want is to drive him back into Voldemort's spectral arms. But we do still hope to catch him. I believe he's gotten the message that if he turns himself in and tells us all he knows, we'll place him in one of France's nicer cells, rather than Azkaban."

"You'd go easy on him?" said Harry. "He killed my parents, basically."

"He gave information to the Dark Lord for the sake of saving his own skin. But even if he had killed your parents with his own hands, then yes, I would keep him from torture at the hands of the dementors for the sake of preventing Voldemort's return." Dumbledore's eyes grew fierce. "I would do and have done a great many things for the sake of that."

"But he-"

"Harry, if you had to choose between Pettigrew spending the rest of his time in a prison, captive but humanely treated, and Voldemort not coming back, or Pettigrew being caught somewhat later and spending the rest of his life in Azkaban, and Voldemort returning, starting a war, and killing many or your friends, which would you choose?"

"The first," admitted Harry.

"And what do you think of Azkaban in general? I know how you feel about dementors. Do you think it's a good practice we wizards of Britain have, subjecting our prisoners to them? To torture of the soul?"

"Not for innocent people clearly, or for minor crimes, but for people like Pettigrew..."

"He ought to be tortured? If you could, would you keep him in an expanded trunk and practice the Cruciatus on him every day before dinner?"

"That's sick!"

"Then why do you want the dementors to torture him _for_ dinner. Do not think it isn't your responsibility. Your hands are not washed of what you advocate for. Leaving Voldemort beside, would you prefer for Pettigrew to be in Azkaban to be tortured by dementors, or kept humanely in a cell?"

Harry knew what answer Dumbledore wanted from him; it was the same answer he wanted from himself. But it wasn't the answer he had. "I don't know."

"That puts you on a better moral footing than many." The headmaster continued in his normal tone. "Voldemort himself was forced to leave his homunculus body, as you saw. And the spell I cast did him damage that I doubt he himself is aware of, and best that it stays that way."

Dumbledore did not elaborate, even after Harry gave him a pointed look, so Harry said,

"Sir, this sounds ridiculous. But that spell you cast before he escaped. Was it sort of like a Cheering Charm?"

Dumbledore looked delighted. "Yes. More a spell to restore moral fortitude, but yes. Quite similar to a Cheering Charm. And a thing so daft and quixotic, so foolishly idealistic, damaged him as the Killing Curse itself in that form could not have. Being a homicidal maniac sustained by Dark Magic has real and practical costs. I have taught him that many times now."

"You're not going to explain more though?" said Harry, when Dumbledore appeared to have finished.

"Not until you've mastered occlumency. The Dark Mark has faded, and I doubt you'll connect to him in dreams again until such time as he regains physical form, which we shall aim to prevent him from doing, but I think you gather why I'm so insistent that you learn it?"

Harry didn't figure it out until Dumbledore asked, and he could've kicked himself. Occlumency wasn't just a general safety procedure. "Voldemort and I have a special connection," he felt dirty saying it, "and he could possibly see into my mind even from a distance, or even control me."

"Or he could simply become aware that you are seeing into his head, and show you false experiences to trick you."

"If he could use this connection to help himself, couldn't we do the same?"

"Possibly. But to even attempt it, you must first wrest the title of 'most skilled occlumens in all of Britain' from one Severus Snape, a tall mountain to climb, I assure you."

"Snape is-"

"Professor Snape is quite skilled at many matters. And that skill of his, Mr. Potter, is one of my secrets. Handle it well. You read the book on occlumency? Good. How about the exercises?"

Harry said, "I'm doing the memory hardening and recovery, and the observations and the meditation daily, and I'm getting used to it and better at it, but I'm not enjoying it or sustaining it for long periods like it says I should. Especially the meditation." He wouldn't have done them with any regularity if it weren't for how disappointed Dumbledore would be if he didn't.

"Good. I'll test you. Choose a memory which you'd rather I didn't know, but which is not truly a secret. A mildly embarrassing experience, perhaps."

"The Yule Ball," said Harry.

"Signal me when you feel you are ready to do your best, and I will try to see that memory."

They all become more sophisticated as they went up, but according to _Mind's Mortar_ , there were three basic approaches to occlumency. The first was to think of nothing. The second was to think of something in particular. The third was to exist completely in the moment.

Harry was rubbish at the first two but hoped he might be a prodigy at the third to make up for it. The exercises for it were similar to the watchful focus of looking for the snitch.

His breathing slowed. He saw Dumbledore. A small green leaf that had lodged in Dumbledore's beard. The door, and the three scratches in the paint. He heard the faint hum of the fridge. He lifted a finger, and Dumbledore said _"legilimens."_

A part of him knew that all Dumbledore saw was Dumbledore. But only a very small part of him, because most of him was busy seeing Dumbledore.

"Well done," said Dumbledore.

A tiny, tiny part of him knew that Dumbledore saying 'well done,' was intended as a distraction, but the rest of him was busy looking at Dumbledore.

And feeling a push against his attention. And a stronger push. And a stronger push. And Dumbledore was inside, rifling through his mind, starting with the words 'dance' and 'Yule,' in a moment finding Harry standing awkwardly next to Parvati Patil.

He heard Dumbledore saying, "Fight me, Harry."

He fought. He pushed. He wasn't even sure what fighting entailed, but he could feel Dumbledore, like he might feel a man in front of him, and Dumbledore was seeing how he had ignored his date to stare at Cho, and he was trying to move Dumbledore outside his mind, but it was like trying to move a car.

And Dumbledore withdrew, leaving Harry gripping his pounding head.

Dumbledore said, "Waging warfare in one's own head gives one a headache. The only real solution I know is to not let others in in the first place." He handed Harry a blue liquid in a glass vial. "I wouldn't normally give you this, as it might lead to a dependency, but just this once should be fine."

Harry downed the vial and immediately felt better, though as the pain receded he felt embarrassed.

He hadn't thought, he hadn't been thinking, but his perception had been that his wall had been holding against Dumbledore's assault, and then he'd found out that really, Dumbledore had been gently pressing against a paper screen to see how much force it would take.

Dumbledore said, "You can do better. Considering how you've thrown off the Imperius Curse, I know you can fight harder. Perhaps you'd raise more willpower if it were Professor Snape acting the part of the legilimens? Yes, I see from your expression that you would. Still, all told Harry, it was a surprisingly skillful first attempt, and a better fight back than most your age would muster."

"You won really easily," said Harry.

"Think of the difference between Professor McGonagall and Hermione on her first day of Transfiguration class. She had a good first day, but there was still quite the gap to traverse, wasn't there? You face a similar gap."

Harry's mind reeled. He'd been thinking of occlumency as a summer project which might, at worst, stretch till near the end of his fifth year.

"Take heart, Harry. It's quite a useful skill even at sub-Severus levels of expertise. How has your other reading been going?"

Harry was grateful for the shift. The other books hadn't had exercises for him to do. "In addition to _Mind's Mortar_ , I've read, _The Character of Magic_ , and _Dark Arts and Pure Hearts_ , some parts twice. I've read most of _Forming the Fundament_ and I've started _Within the Cauldron's Bubble_." A lot of _In The Cauldron's Bubble_ reminded him of stuff Snape said, but it made more sense when it wasn't Snape saying it.

"Good," said Dumbledore, and questioned him on the books. Harry felt his answers were bumbling and incomplete, (why did interacted abstractions develop grooves anyway?) but Dumbledore seemed satisfied.

"You have been productive. I'm almost reluctant to take you away, but not quite. There are matters we must attend to at Diagon Alley."

They went out the door and down Privet Drive, those few who were outside paying no attention to the man in the purple suit.

To Harry's confusion, Dumbledore knocked on the door to Ms. Figg's house. The door opened, and Dumbledore said, "Arabella, might we make use of your floo?"

"Of course. Hello, Harry, well done with the tournament."

Floo. The tournament. "You're a witch?" said Harry. Finding out that Uncle Vernon's Thursday get-togethers for bowling were really a cover for his devotion to clown school would've been less shocking.

"A squib, dear," said Ms. Figg. "The fireplace is right over there, by the taller china hutch."

Dumbledore pulled Harry along, took a mug down from the mantle, which proved to be full of floo powder. "You've traveled by floo before?"

"Yes. Ms. Figg. This isn't just a coincidence, is it?"

The fire in the grate started without Harry seeing Dumbledore even touch his wand. "Diagon Alley, Harry."

Dumbledore threw in pinch of floo powder, stepped into the flames, said "Diagon Alley," and vanished.

Harry followed after, tolerated the usual spinning, and tumbled out an outdoor fireplace just inside the entrance to the Alley. He kept his feet.

Dumbledore waved his wand. The ash and soot vanished, then Dumbledore's suit became his usual robes, and Harry's muggle clothes were covered by bottle green robes, a casual version of what he'd worn to the Yule Ball. Harry guessed that his robes were conjured (and so would disappear in several hours or days) and that Dumbledore's robes were his lavender suit untransfigured.

Dumbledore began walking up Diagon Alley, and Harry chased after him, intending to ask about Ms. Figg.

Dumbledore said, "What we must do now, Mr. Potter, will challenge your maturity and sense of perspective as few other things have. To defend against this hazard, you must remember what is truly important, and never forget, even in your daily habits, that this is not it.

"I had wondered when to do this, wondered if I might wait till you were older, more ready to face this burden, but I have decided at last that it is better to prepare you properly for it than to wait till the day when it is forced upon us."

Harry followed Dumbledore up the steps of Gringotts.

"The problem, Mr. Potter, is that you are rich."

#

#

Harry and Dumbledore sat on one side of the paper-cluttered table, the goblin Macequill on the other.

Harry said, "It doesn't seem like I'm Malfoy rich."

Dumbledore said, "You are not 'forty galleon glass of wine every night with dinner' rich. You are 'could raise a family in comfort without ever working a day' rich."

"I know I have a lot of galleons, but wouldn't I run out eventually?"

"This must come as an unwelcome surprise to you, but you have income, Harry." The way Dumbledore said 'income' suggested it was an embarrassing but non-debilitating disease, like toe fungus.

Macequill pushed three of the papers toward Harry. "You own three properties outright in Diagon Alley, and two in Knockturn Alley. You see the monthly rents here and here." Macequill tapped the papers as he spoke. "You have six acres of land in Wales, valuable land for magical agriculture, and part ownership in the company that does production and distribution. And twenty acres of land in the Forbidden Forest-

"At a far remove from the school," put in Dumbledore.

"Twenty acres of land in the Forbidden Forest. You essentially run it as a wildlife preserve, with just a bit of income from fees paid by licensed collectors. They're there for unicorn hair, moonstones, truffles and the like. And you have a six-hundred-thousand galleon stake in Gringotts."

"S-six-hundred-thousand?"

"Slightly over. That's in addition to the liquid funds in your vault."

"What's a stake?"

Macequill said, "The nearest muggle equivalent is an Index Fund."

"A what?" said Harry.

"Think of it as owning a small percentage of everything that for sale. You also have two smaller actual Index Funds on the muggle side."

Macequill pushed two more papers forward and pointed to the most pertinent items.

"Three-hundred-thousand pounds," Harry squeaked.

Macequill said, "Don't get too excited. Here are your expenses for all your accounts."

The paper was scrawled on with minuses. Fees paid to Gringotts, Hogwarts tuition, his yearly withdrawals to pay for his school supplies, and a bunch of other items he didn't recognize.

"Are these charitable donations?"

Macequill said, "A percentage of the yearly net gain is automatically donated to various causes, continuing from your grandparents' time."

Harry looked the items over. The War Survivors' Fund. The War Orphans' Fund. Hogwarts for All. Saint Mungo's Trust. The Wildlife Protection Fund. The Magical Civil Liberties Union. The yearly donations vastly dwarfed his yearly withdrawals for school supplies.

Even after those deductions, the yearly gain was more than he could imagine spending.

Harry said, "Could I raise the percentage?"

Macequill said, "You wish to increase the amount you give to others for free?"

"I think so."

Macequill muttered something about wizards, and said, "With your Magical Guardian's sign-off."

"My magical guardian?"

Dumbledore raised a hand.

Macequill said, "In most respects, he's done an acceptable job. Returns have been above average. The Potter account has recovered substantially from the beating it took during the war."

Dumbledore said, "I've simply ordered Macequill to reinvest the yearly remainder, focusing on the Gringotts Stake and brick and mortar locations."

Macequill said, "I do have one complaint against him. One could almost call it embezzlement." He sent Dumbledore a dirty look. "Your magical guardian is leasing the old Potter House to The Phoenix Foundation, which your magical guardian chairs, at the price of one knut per year. The Phoenix Foundation is merely obliged to pay taxes and upkeep. This relationship began before your parents' untimely death, but was not at the time set up to be permanent."

Dumbledore said, "The house plays host to those who find themselves temporarily without living arrangements. There's a caretaker, a counselor, and three house-elves."

"Are there any students at Hogwarts who...

"A number of students have had a stay in it, yes. You are of course free to see record of the beneficiaries."

"I'd rather not," said Harry. He didn't want to walk down the halls of Hogwarts thinking about which students had benefited from his family's money, and whether they owed him or not. But it did raise a question he'd been intending to raise with Dumbledore. Why did he have to stay with the Dursleys? He could've stayed at the Potter House, at least.

But he wasn't having that conversation in front of a goblin.

Dumbledore said, "I approve of your instinct to give, but I must insist on two requirements. First, you must research whatever organization you might consider giving to, and what your other options for giving are, and look at projections of the longterm financial impact on your account, and second, you must not give to anything with which I am involved with until you gain full control of your accounts at the age of seventeen."

Harry said, "I was thinking I'd give some to Hogwarts."

Dumbledore said, "That's wonderful, but no. Hogwarts could use the money, and use very it well I hope, but it is politically important that you and I avoid even the appearance of impropriety. But philanthropy, wonderful as it might be, is not why we're here."

Dumbledore said to Macequill. "I wish for Mr. Potter to become co-executor of his account, effective on his fifteenth birthday. I've already prepared the forms."

#

#

An hour later, with a Gringotts key, a purse full of galleons, and five-hundred pounds in his wallet, Harry sat with Dumbledore at the only table on a restaurant's roof, taking advantage of the sunny weather and Dumbledore's clout. Nan's Heart served Indian curry, which Harry hadn't had before, but quite liked.

Dumbledore said, "I'm hoping to add more regional variety to the Hogwarts' cuisine. Alas, I'm afraid it shall not occur in any organized fashion this year, but the house-elves will cater to you if you ask."

Harry intended to.

"With your OWLs coming up, have you begun thinking about career possibilities?"

Harry wasn't sure what kind of jobs there were. Mr. Weasley worked for the ministry, Charlie worked with dragons, Bill was a curse breaker at Gringotts, whatever that meant. And now he found out he didn't need to have a career if he didn't want to. "I guess I could be an Auror, like Moody, maybe. Since Defense is my best class. I don't know. What did my parents do?"

Dumbledore's voice was low. "Don't spread this around, but during the war, in addition to the Ministry, a number of citizen's groups fought the Death Eaters. Some might call them vigilante groups, but I'd call them militias. Fresh out of Hogwarts, James used his family's wealth to bankroll one such group, allowing many of its members, he, Lily, Sirius and Lupin included, to fight full-time."

Harry gulped. He'd known in a vague way that his parents had opposed Voldemort, but this was more than he'd guessed.

"If there had been no war, no Voldemort, I suspect Lily would've been a potioneer, focused more on research than brewing, and James would've used his talent for transfiguration to work in object creation-he and Sirius actually collaborated to make a pensieve for a class project as a seventh-year, which was very impressive.

"Sirius would almost uncertainly have made a career of adapting muggle technology and staying in compliance with Mr. Weasley's office. Or more likely, he would've hired an assistant and a lawyer to keep him out of too much trouble with it."

Harry said, "Do you have any suggestions for me?

Dumbledore gave Harry a booklet with eight smiling Hogwarts students on the cover, two from each house. "Hogwarts produces this. It's on the OWLs, and various career options. The one-sentence summary is that good grades are good to have. We'll stop at a bookstore before we leave, and I'll give you more recommendations; you seem to have done well enough with my recommendations so far. Perhaps something you read will strike you.

"Additionally, this year, Hogwarts will have new programs, designed in part to better prepare older students to enter the workforce. The school made quite a lot of money off the Tri-Wizard tournament. If Voldemort had returned, I would've had to spend it all on security, but, luckily, he did not, and I get to follow my plans. Additionally, the Malfoy family has at last been kind enough to make a _very_ substantial bequest to Hogwarts."

Harry said, "Why would they do that?" All he could think of was buying influence.

"It has to do with an ongoing conversation Lucius and I have been having in regards to how he might obtain sole ownership of certain sadly non-prosecutable but potentially very damaging items of information pertaining to certain events which took place during your second year."

"The Chamber of Secrets." said Harry.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "I believe it's nearly time for us to discover that. The basilisk will have decayed little, and the parts of a thousand-year-old basilisk can be sold for quite the tidy sum, even split between you, Ginny and the school."

"Fawkes should get at least half."

"Fawkes will donate his share to the school," said Dumbledore. "Beyond the money, discovering the chamber will burnish our reputations, and may just furnish me with the political capital to remove purity of blood from the Slytherin House charter, especially now that Lucius Malfoy has withdrawn his opposition."

Harry said, "Which also has to do with those conversations you've been having with him about what happened during my second year?"

Dumbledore smiled. "Lucius and I are always talking. I thought we had come to an agreement at the start of last year, but as the mark strengthened, he dug his heels in. Now that it has subsided..."

Harry had the idea that many of the Headmaster's long-laid plans were coming to fruition all at once.

Dumbledore said, "It will be a busy year. I'll understand if you'd prefer that I scratch you off the list of candidates for the position of Gryffindor prefect, though I advise you not to."

The idea did not startle Harry. There were only five incoming Gryffindor boys, and it had to be one of them. He said, "It'd be me or Dean Thomas, wouldn't it?" Their marks, though not great, were the best. Harry got in trouble more, but usually for decent reasons, and had probably shown more 'leadership' than Dean.

Harry said, "Between OWLs, side-projects and Quidditch, I won't have a lot of time... what are the benefits of being a prefect anyway?"

"Principally, access to a very nice bathing room. And it looks excellent on one's resume. But the duties are their own reward. As a prefect, you would find yourself assisting younger children with their homework. That which you first learned rotely you would be forced to understand. You might like it. And you'd have legitimate reason to wander through the corridors of Hogwarts at night. There are any number of ways to make the time productive."

Harry said, "Hermione would be the girls' prefect, right?"

Dumbledore said nothing, but his face spoke volumes.

Ron wouldn't like it, even though Ron had objectively worse marks and was snappy with younger students. But though Harry had forgiven Ron for turning his back on him through much of last year, he wasn't feeling overly considerate. And Harry could think of worse things than walking around the castle with his other best friend. "Sure. Consider me for the position."

Dumbledore paid. "Now let's see about that bookstore.

#

#

Dumbledore loaded him down with books. _Magical Careers_ , _Reasons for Runes_ , _Arithmancy Basics_ , _Thirty-Three Wards Everyone Ought to Know_ , _The Warp of the Ward_ , _The Art of Spell Creation_ , _Reading Magic_ , _The Beginner's Guide to Cursebreaking_ , _You-Know-What War_ , and _A Cultural History of Wizarding Britain_.

Also, a sketchbook, since Dumbledore said that drawing would improve his ability to visualize and notice details, hence improving his 'talent' in all subjects, but especially transfiguration.

Harry winced at the expense, but knew there were many, many, many more galleons were those had come from.

Dumbledore said, "Get to these after the others. I particularly recommend _Reading Magic_ and The _Warp of the Ward_. Classics. I read them when I was young, and they include exercises you can practice without violating the statute against underage magic."

Ten books, plus the two he hadn't finished, with a little under seven weeks of summer vacation left. If he stayed at the Dursleys he'd finish them without question, on the basis of there being nothing else to do, but if he spent much time at the Weasleys it became more questionable.

Harry decided he'd pick the Weasleys.

Walking out of the bookstore, Dumbledore said, "I have an errand to run that you might assist me on if you like. It isn't dangerous in the least, but you may find it slightly unpleasant."

"I'm game," said Harry. Going back to the Dursleys would also be slightly unpleasant.

"Excellent. Harry, have you ever experienced side-along apparition?"

"No." What he'd heard about it wasn't good.

"First time for everything," said Dumbledore. "Take my arm, and hold on very tightly."

Harry took hold of Dumbledore's off-arm with both hands. The arm twisted, and the world turned black while pressing against him. Breathing wasn't possible even if there was anything to breathe. He felt like a jacket being compressed so the suitcase would close.

Then it was over. He was bent with his hands on his knees, thinking that his first experience of side-along apparition had better also be his last.

"It's better when you do it yourself," said Dumbledore.

Harry straightened as Dumbledore changed their wizarding clothes to muggle ones, though he hadn't seen when. His current clothes fit better than his normal ones. He thought they might be stylish, and color coordinated, even if the green of the polo shirt beneath the brown felt jacket was a little bright.

He hadn't thought Dumbledore had it in him.

They were between two trees on a narrow country road with houses on both sides, the houses not quite manors, the yards larger.

Dumbledore said, "One of these is a wizarding household. Would you care to guess which?"

Harry walked back and forth a little, stopping before a house of red brick and high-peaked roofs. "This one. There's a certain warmth. I don't know how to explain. But the architectural style seems more wizarding, and I notice the telephone cable doesn't connect to it."

"Well spotted," said Dumbledore. "This is the house of Horace Slughorn, formerly a professor at Hogwarts. I'm endeavoring to convince him to come back in a new capacity."

Dumbledore pushed through the gate and knocked twice on the red door.

After a minute, an old fat man with a big mustache opened the door.

"Albus! What a pleasant surprise." But he didn't seem pleased. He did, however, move aside from the door, and say "Tea, Albus?"

"Of course."

As they came inside, he noticed Harry behind Dumbledore.. "And this is-" He took in Harry's scar. "Oh my."

"Harry Potter," said Harry, extending his hand. Slughorn shook it thoroughly.

Dumbledore said, "Harry and I were just having a counseling session, in regards to his OWLs and what sort of career he might like, and I thought he might enjoy coming along."

"It's a pleasure," said Harry.

"For me as well," Slughorn. "The Boy-Who-Loved and the Tri-Wizard co-champion." He motioned for Harry to take a seat. "Tell me all about it."

Harry began describing the tournament, slowing slightly when a house-elf brought out tea and blueberry scones, endeavoring to make the telling as entertaining as possible while editing out everything that had to do with Crouch and his plot. That wasn't hard.

"You made friends with the other champions?" said Slughorn.

"We became friendly," said Harry. "I think my friend Hermione was expecting to exchange letters with Krum this summer."

"Yes, the muggle-born he took to the ball. Would you like Hogwarts to have another ball this year?"

Harry hadn't expected that. "I don't know. Maybe. I'm sure the girls would. I made a hash of it, but maybe I'd like to take another stab at it. I think it would've been better if the guys had had more options for dancing lessons. It's worse not knowing what you're doing when you're the one who's supposed to lead."

"Quite," said Slughorn, and changed tack, "From your success in the tournament at such a young age, I take it Defense is your best subject."

"Yes. Then maybe charms after that."

"Not potions? Your mother was brilliant at potions."

That was a strange yet familiar feeling. Random strangers knowing his parents far better than he ever could.

"I'm alright at it," said Harry.

"You have her eyes." Slughorn's own eyes were misty.

"I know."

"If those are your favorites, is there anything you're curious about that's not being covered? Any interesting area the standard syllabi don't quite get to?"

Harry said, "I've been wondering about bright magic or deific magic, whatever you want to call it. Dark magic depends on destructive emotional states. So why haven't I learned many spells that depend on love or hope or compassion or even sorrow?"

Slughorn said, "Deific magic can be quite powerful, especially the self-sacrificial sort, but it's finicky, unpredictable stuff. Most find it hard to maintain the necessary mindset, and even when they do it can be curiously inflexible. The mindset for dark magic, unfortunately, is easier to manage. Like walking downhill."

Harry said, "My patronus is reliable enough."

Slughorn said, "You can produce a patronus at your age?"

Dumbledore said, "Harry first produced his patronus in his third year. A beautiful stag. Pity he can't demonstrate it to you outside of school."

"Impressive," said Slughorn. "Is that still the most advanced magic you know?"

"I guess. I learned a lot of spells for the tournament, but I think they were all considered fourth or fifth spells, sixth year at most. But other than finding the right memory and learning to do it in front of dementors, I didn't think the charm itself was that hard."

Slughorn said, "Learning to do it in front of dementors? They don't normally agree to be target practice."

Harry grinned. "My boggart's a dementor, or at least it was, so all I had to do to get a decent simulation of the real thing was find a boggart. We didn't test to see whether they can kiss, obviously, but it produced the same chilling and depressing effect as a real dementor, only maybe about a third as strong."

"Fascinating," said Slughorn. "And have you managed it against actual dementors?"

Dumbledore said, "He drove off a hundred near the end of his third year."

"A hundred! How did you manage that?"

"We were out of bounds after school, and they were hungry, so there wasn't much choice. I don't think the Ministry was very wise to send dementors to protect a school. They almost killed me three times, and I'm sure others had close calls too."

"Remarkable," said Slughorn. "Part of that whole Sirius Black business. I've been hearing the most interesting rumors about it from my contacts in the Ministry."

"I'd imagine," said Dumbledore, "But now we must get to business. "You've been considering my offer, Horace?"

Sounding somewhat regretful, Slughorn said, "It's tempting, but I don't have the energy for it. I'm retired." But he glanced at Harry.

"You would have assistance. Madam Hooch is eager to go full-time, and young Miss Clearwater proved most capable while a prefect. We have the budget, we have the manpower, what we're missing is someone with your skills and reputation."

"You mean my clout and connections," said Slughorn.

"Those as well."

Slughorn shook his head. "If I were ten years younger."

Dumbledore sighed. "I'm disappointed with your choice, but it is your decision. I'll have to move on to my second choice. Horace, if you don't mind, would you unblock your floo? We have elsewhere to be."

"You're going? I haven't said no yet. Who's your second choice?"

"Stella Schmitt."

Slughorn groaned. "Her. She's insufferable."

"I find her engaging," said Dumbledore. "Strong-willed, energetic, and in her prime. She-"

"I'll do it," said Slughorn.

"Oh? A sudden about-face. You're sure? I hardly want a Program Director who isn't committed."

"Don't push it, Albus. It's not as if it's not perfectly obvious what you're doing. And I want a raise."

"We'll have to discuss that later," said Dumbledore, pulling aside the grate from the fireplace, a turning a lever and starting a fire. He threw a pinch of floo dust in.

"Ms. Arabella Figg's residence."

Harry said, "Good-bye, Professor Slughorn," and followed Dumbledore, stumbling out into the cat-strewn sitting room.

Ms. Figg was at the stove, bent over a pan. "Would you two boys like to stay for dinner?"

Dumbledore said, "Thank you kindly for the offer, but we have other business to attend to."

When they were outside, Dumbledore leaned over and quietly said, "A kind woman, and terribly brave, but not the best cook."

Harry had already known the last part. He said, "You had her keeping an eye on me, didn't you?" She'd lived in her house for as long as he could remember. She'd used to babysit him.

"She's generally reported that you worked in the garden and wore your cousin's hand-me-downs, but seemed inquisitive and energetic. Well done with Horace."

"You talked me up."

"Stating a small part of the truth was sufficient to that purpose. Horace is a man who loves to find people who will be influential and introduce them to those who are influential. At school, he will certainly seek you out. You don't have to play the political game, but if you wish to see Voldemort destroyed and Snuffles exonerated, I suggest you push through your discomfort and be friendly."

Harry's eyes were wide. He had a hundred questions; Dumbledore seemed to be treating him differently all of a sudden, and he didn't know why, but the questions were blown out of his head when Dumbledore spoke again.

Dumbledore said, "How would you feel about spending the bulk of the rest of the summer in the company of a werewolf and a convicted murderer?"

"Really? When?"

"As soon as you're packed."

"Ten minutes," said Harry, and rushed for the Dursleys' front door.

"Harry, wait. Listen, and think about the option. If you stay with them, your ability to go outside will be limited, and remember that Snuffles is still a wanted man. The situation if you were caught with him would be very politically complicated."

Harry's head hurt thinking about it. "They think he's trying to kill me, so finding me with him should make them think they're wrong about that. But actually, lots of them don't really think he's trying to kill me, they're just trying to cover up that they used to think so and were wrong, so they'd think I was opposing them. Would the ones who know he's not a servant of Voldemort say I'm a secret sympathizer, while the ones who really do think he's a Death Eater... I guess they'd think I'm a Voldemort sympathizer too? Except I'm the Boy-Who-Lived, so it's hard to say?"

"Quite," said Dumbledore.

"I'd better not get caught then."

He opened the door to Number Four Privet, thankful the hinges were freshly greased, intending to slip in quietly, but Dumbledore came in behind him.

"Get ready Harry. I just need to speak to your Aunt or Uncle for a moment.

Harry hesitated. He wanted to be gone immediately, but he also wanted to see how his relatives would react to Albus Dumbledore in their sitting room. That Uncle Vernon wasn't back from work yet made it less tempting.

Pounding up the stairs, he heard Dumbledore say, "Good afternoon Petunia. Or is it evening already? I am Albus Dumbledore. We've corresponded. With your permission, I'll take Harry away to stay at a friend's house, and you won't see him until next year. Is that agreeable?"

The rest was loss to distance and hurry, Harry tearing his bedding off and stuffing it in his trunk, then moving on to the books.

Harry almost had his trunk filled when he remembered about his subterfuge.

He poked his head out the room and yelled down the stairs, "Professor, could you help me with something?"

Dumbledore came up the stairs. They got the real trunk shrunk, the fake trunk out of the cupboard (which Professor Dumbledore gave a long look), shrunk that trunk too, and were out of the house in a jiffy.

"Hold onto my arm, Harry," said Dumbledore, when they'd gone fifty paces.

Harry grimaced, grabbed Dumbledore's arm, and braced himself.

"I promise it'll be better the second time," said Dumbledore, and they were gone, with only a reverberating crack of sound left where they'd been.

:::  
The symbolism of light vs dark is a perfectly nice symbolism, but I think our cultural commitment to it ends up coloring our views of actual, physical objects, (including people) so I try to avoid it. Thus, deific (god-like) magic rather than light magic. I don't love the phrase though. Holy magic? Altruistic magic? Positive magic? Any ideas?

As the story continues, the concentration of Dumbledore will fall.

When I read something I like, I check to see if the author has written other stories. In addition to my other fanfics, this author has also put an original book up on Amazon. Monstrosity, by JLL. Check the books department. Only 99 cents.

Some readers thought I was hard on Harry in the previous chapter. Sure. I'm the author. But it wasn't the story being hard on Harry, just Harry being hard on Harry.

If we believe canonical Dumbledore's guess at the chronology of horcruxes, Nagini was not yet a horcrux when fanfic Dumbledore killed her.

I didn't misspell Quirrell. Harry did.


	3. Chapter 3: Renovating the House of Black

**Renovating the House of Black**

With a pop, Harry and Dumbledore appeared in a battered square that had been a small park in better days.

Harry took a deep breath. The apparition had not been comfortable, but it had been better than the first time, and not just because he'd been prepared for it. He looked at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore said, "I used to have something of a knack for making side-along apparition comparatively comfortable, but I've seldom done it since the war." He pointed to two houses. "See their addresses, Harry?"

The houses were grimy, in disrepair, and oddly enough, one was marked Number 11, another Number 13, with no 12 in between.

He wouldn't have thought anything of it if he'd been passing by, but since they'd come and Dumbledore was pointing it out... "Number 12 is hidden?"

Dumbledore took out a piece of paper. "Read this."

 _12 Grimmauld Place is at 12 Grimmauld Place._

In the small space between 11 and 13, a large building appeared. A dark building that contrived to look squat despite being four stories plus an attic.

Harry said, "It's a tautology. How can that even work?"

Dumbledore walked toward it, Harry following. "If you think about your readings, you'll be able to make a decent guess."

Harry thought back to some of the less comprehensible pages of __The Character of Magic__. "Even though it's a tautology, it's a synthetic a priori, because the information isn't actually the words, it's just encoded in the receival of the words as written on that paper. I could find the Auror in charge of looking for Snuffles and tell him that sentence, or write it on a different piece of paper, but it wouldn't matter, it wouldn't let him see the house, because what you're holding is what has the real key."

"Good," said Dumbledore, and rang the bell. "If someone read only the subject, would that be enough?"

"You'd need subject and predicate both," said Harry. "Designation and information."

Dumbledore said, "And how do you think the information is encoded?"

"Um... Well, magic?"

"Indeed. You may wish to re-read __The Character Of Magic__ after you've read __The Warp of the Ward__."

The door opened. Remus stepped through, shook Harry's hand, and patted him on the back.

"Harry, Albus, come in. All ready for a long stay, Harry?"

"Definitely. Trunk's in my pocket." He slapped it, and followed Lupin into the entry hall.

What he saw of the house was in a state of flux. The floor was smooth cement, ready for flooring, the walls were covered in muted, tree filled wallpaper that gave one the impression of being in a silver forest at dusk, but then the wallpaper ended, showing drywall. There was a hole in the ceiling, with pipes and struts visible, clearly having been worked on recently, and light was provided by old-fashioned gas lamps that did not match the honest to goodness muggle phone on the buffet.

Dumbledore said, "I hardly recognize it."

A harsher voice said, "I'd hope not." Sirius came in wearing a red bathrobe with black flowers, hair wet, a blue towel still in one hand, obviously fresh from the bath. "Harry! Welcome to my dreary abode."

He gave his godson a hug, likely less rambunctious than it would've been if he'd been wearing more than a bathrobe. "You're here for awhile?"

"Whole summer, maybe," said Harry. "If that works for you."

"It's excellent for me. Being here is not the greatest fun, but there is at least a lot to do. We've cleared out all the doxies and boggarts and the like, gotten rid of a lot of the old junk, and more or less made the first floor and the basement habitable. Got most of the wallpaper done today. We'll finish it and do the new flooring tomorrow. You've got a large room with a walk-in-closet, a fresh ether mattress and two rugs to keep your feet warm till the floor's in."

"You've been renovating? What is this place?"

"The old Black house. My family's. Grew up here, hated it, hated it, full of bad memories. My mother and I clashed on everything, but not least on decorating principles. She's a bitch, you'll meet her later, We had house-elf heads mounted in the hallway. Imagine that. I took them down, and Kreacher hid them somewhere when I wasn't looking. Hungry?"

"Not yet, but I could eat. But, you said I'll meet your mother later. Isn't she...?"

Sirius said, "She's dead, thank Merlin. Don't worry, you'll see later. Moony, isn't it about time?"

"I'll leave in five."

Sirius led them into the sitting room, full of expensive dark leather furniture. "Muggle furniture, old, damaged and cheap. Better than new with a few charms."

Harry sank into a leather lazy-boy. It was easily equal to the fluffy armchairs in the Gryffindor common room, but what attracted more of his attention was the old broken television leaned against a wall.

"Side project, after we get the flooring done, and have done something about these lights. Harry, how's your summer been?"

"It's been good. Just exercising and reading. Professor Dumbledore lent me some books."

Lupin said, "That's quite the honor."

Dumbledore said, "Unfortunately, I have quite a lot of paperwork to get to tonight, so allow me to conclude my business here before you catch up. First, Sirius. The French are now looking for Pettigrew. I expect that in two to three weeks they'll put in an extradition request to the British Ministry. I doubt this will cause much movement, but it does lay more ground work. Second, you can expect Hagrid by sometime this summer to take Buckbeak to more appropriate accommodations.

"Third, you should know that Harry has begun occlumency training. Please make your pensieve available to him, and if you have any mind reading objects in the Black house which are not dangerous, allow him to use them with your supervision."

"Harry, before I leave, I'll give you a splitting headache. Now that you've had a chance to think over your first go at defending against legilimency, how do you rate yourself at the five occlumencic characteristics?"

"I think my will is good. Very good even. I threw off Crouch's Imperius, and Moody couldn't do that."

Dumbledore said, "Crouch used the Imperius on Moody in concert with certain potions that reduced his ability to fight it. But yes, your resistance to compulsion has been noted, and is promising. But what else about will?"

"For occlumency, it's best to have pure will, a sort of purified resolve, not very emotional, and I'm, well, some people might say I'm a little emotional."

"Not a bad thing. Understand Harry that you don't need to become a different self. You only need to master yourself. And compartmentalization?"

"At first I thought I was really bad at it, but..." he thought of his life at the Dursleys, and how he got decent marks at Hogwarts even while his life was under threat. "But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that I do it a lot."

"Yes. You do it powerfully. But not, I would say, skillfully, or with the sort of self-awareness we must aim for. And speaking of self-awareness?"

"That's the one I'm sort of middling with."

And control?"

"I'm bollocks at control," said Harry.

"Indeed. You'll find that control, or at least the sort of control I'd rather you learn, is very much caught up in awareness. You must observe your own emotions, and accept that they are seldom the most important part of the situation. Learn not to suppress them, but to watch them flow past. Dissembly?"

"I'm bollocks at that one too."

"I'd say so. You're a horrible liar, which is nearly a good thing, normally. You carry your heart on your sleeve, Harry, and that isn't a bad place to keep it, but you must learn to stow it elsewhere when you like."

Harry nodded dumbly. He knew that was true. He'd been told it often enough.

"Perhaps a drama course might help. I perform occlumency mainly through awareness and visualization, but Professor Snape gets into character. For you, that may be the more promising tact."

Harry started. "Isn't that dangerous? From what the book says."

"There is a great danger of losing oneself if one does not first become adept at compartmentalization, control, and hardening. Focus on those aspects before attempting that method of dissembly. But now, choose another memory. Something you find embarrassing, but not deeply private."

"My pep-talk to Ron and Hermione about how we needed to stop Snape from stealing the Philosopher's Stone."

"Professor Snape," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling. Then, _"_ _ _legilimens__ _."_

It went better the second time. Dumbledore needed a little more force to penetrate his initial defense, and once Dumbledore was in, Harry began hitting immediately. Still, it wasn't long before Dumbledore had found what he was looking for.

A painfully young Harry Potter ranting about stopping Snape from getting the stone in order to return Voldemort to life, made more embarrassing by the fact that the mature, adult 14-year old Harry had become sure that his attempt to protect the stone had only fouled up Dumbledore's trap for Voldemort.

Though actually, being forced to watch the memory forced him to admit it wasn't as bad as he'd thought. Most of what he said about what was really important was absolutely right.

When Dumbledore allowed himself to be pushed out, Harry had a horrible headache. He clasped his hands with his eyes shut, hands pressed to his temples and didn't realize till he heard the others talking that Lupin had left and returned with pizza.

Dumbledore said, "Unless my nose deceives me, bellpeppers, basil and sausage?"

Lupin said, "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

With a flick of his wand, Dumbledore duplicated the box.

#

#

Harry lazed in a bed even more comfortable than what he slept in at Hogwarts; he guessed it was more expensive. But eventually the thunking sound from outside plus the growing pressure on his bladder forced him to throw on some clothes and go looking.

The bare concrete of the hall from yesterday was covered by foam. Thick planks of hardwood flooring laid themselves, all of them grooved and slotted, fitting themselves together.

Lupin was a few steps from the ragged edge of advancing flooring, waving his wand. He said, "Morning Harry," stopped his wand, and the planks froze in mid-air.

Harry ran into the bathroom.

That done, he wandered into the room they'd eaten in last night. A combination kitchen and casual dining room, though he had the idea that it hadn't been that for long. Looking at the floor and the ceiling, he could see where a wall had been knocked out, and the steel sink and the small stove both looked new and surprisingly mugglish.

Sirius was finishing the laying of hardwood flooring through it just as Harry came in.

"Morning Pronglet, help yourself to food."

In the preserver, he found bacon. In the pantry, he found teabags and genuine muggle pop-tarts. The counter played host to an electric toaster and an electric tea kettle, both with their cords cut. When he depressed the toaster's lever, the toaster didn't work.

Sirius grinned and told him to stick the pop-tarts in. Once he had, the coils glowed.

Sirius said, "Put your index finger on the little pad, and think about how well-done you want the pastries."

Harry felt the slightest little hint of something like legilimency, except rather than taking something from him, it was waiting to accept it. A little mental and magical fumbling later, he'd given it his request.

Harry said, "Doing that doesn't break the statute against underage magic?"

Sirius waved the worry aside. "Anything with a wand, or something major wandless. Working a toaster doesn't count. Kreacher!"

A pop, and a small house-elf appeared. For an instant, Harry thought it was Dobby, the only house-elf he'd spent significant time with, but Dobby wasn't so wrinkled and didn't have wispy white hair growing out of his ears.

"Good morning," said Harry, though it was after noon.

Kreacher turned slowly and looked at Harry through bloodshot eyes.

Sirius said, "Kreacher, cook Harry bacon. Nice and crispy. And vegetables of some sort. Harry has to eat right." Sirius began to lay flooring in the next room.

Kreacher said, "Kreacher will do as ungrateful master says."

Harry was in a good enough mood that he only blinked at that, and he forgot it entirely when not a minute later Kreacher give him a plate of perfectly cooked bacon, mushrooms and broccoli.

"Thanks, Kreacher." Harry ate a crispy slice of bacon and noticed the house-elf staring at his forehead.

"Kreacher wonders if it is Harry Potter, it must be, Kreacher can see the scar, the boy who stopped the Dark Lord, Kreacher wonders how he did it."

Harry said, "I think my mother did it, really."

"Half-blood says the mudblood did it. Kreacher wonders why the half-blood lies."

Harry said, "Don't say that word."

"Kreacher does not have to listen to the half-blood, no, Kreacher does not."

Sirius's sharp voice came from the next room. "Kreacher, I order you to obey Harry Potter in all matters. And don't say that word."

"What word are masters wanting Kreacher to not say."

Harry said, "Mudblood. Don't say mudblood."

"Kreacher hears and obeys. Kreacher will no longer refer to the muggle-born filth with that word."  
Harry's fists clenched, but performing any sort of violence against a house-elf who'd been told to obey him was blatantly, laughably unacceptable, so he ate a piece of bacon instead, as if to show how little he cared for what the house-elf said.

Sirius came in from the other room. "Kreacher. Go clean on the third floor."

The house-elf vanished with a pop, and Sirius said, "Maybe I should've let you cook your own bacon. But you had to meet the resident terror someday. Our loyal house-elf, continuing on the Black family traditions of cruelty and prejudice."

"Your family?"

"Horrible people."

Harry picked at the rest of his breakfast as Sirius explained about his family, even taking him to another room to look at the family tree and point out all the Death Eaters.

Sirius got back to renovating, forbidding Harry from helping (you're a guest, and without magic, you'd just slow us down) so Harry contented himself with exploring the house, finding it to be in greater disrepair the farther up he went. A basement, containing a kitchen, four stories, plus an attic and a roof access that wouldn't open.

He found Buckbeak in a room on the fourth floor, and while he was nervous being in a room with the Hippogriff (a room that felt much, much smaller than it would've without a Hippogriff for company) Buckbeak seemed happy to see him, and, following Sirius's instructions, he fed the animal from a bag of dead rabbits.

Between potions and Care of Magical Creatures, Harry had gotten used to handling dead animals.

After that questionable honor, he whiled the rest of the time till dinner finishing _Forming the Fundament_ and getting further into _Within the Cauldron's Boil_ , after which he, Sirius and Lupin played a muggle game called Risk, though Sirius and Lupin cast charms on the pieces so they'd move themselves around on being ordered.

Sirius apologized for being a poor host, and Harry laughed.

"It's a hell of a lot better than being at the Dursleys. And I'm spending a lot of this summer quietly reading whether you like it or not. Only thing I don't like is I can't go outside." Then he felt bad for mentioning it.

Sirius said, "Ignore that. Dumbledore's being a worrywart. We just have to take precautions."

Lupin said, "Very stringent precautions. And even then, we must limit how often."

Sirius said, "Come off it Moony. They don't even watch Grimmauld Place anymore. These days the so-called 'manhunt' for me is one intern cataloging my mentions in The Quibbler."

"A little more than that," said Lupin.

"A little. It'll be fine. We'll go hiking the day after tomorrow. You, Lupin, and Snuffles. Do us good to stretch our legs."

Harry said, "It's not going outside, but there's a muggle invention, a treadmill, that allows you to walk in place."

Sirius asked Harry a number of questions about treadmills, then said, "Moony, pick up a treadmill tomorrow. And some muggle lightbulbs too. These ghastly gas lamps do not fit my decorating principles." Sirius sounded very fierce when he said 'decorating principles.' Harry smiled, a little confused, and Lupin nodded gravely.

The next morning, while Sirius cut, sanded, stained and installed the baseboard, Lupin went shopping and Harry finished __Within the Cauldron's Bubble__ , after which he started on his homework, which he'd neglected previously in favor of the books Dumbledore had lent him.

He had put that aside to do meditation exercises and read the introduction to __Reading Magic__ when Lupin returned bearing packages of shrunken goods. Sirius told him to put the treadmill "somewhere on the second floor," then unshrunk and tore open a package of clear incandescent lightbulbs.

Harry said, "Does the house even have electricity?"

"Electricity? Electricity? Harry, we're wizards, what do we need with that? Touch your wand to the base, where it gets power."

Harry did so, and almost dropped the bulb when it lit up without his casting any magic. "Is magic like-no, magic isn't like electricity. Not at all."

"And so what? This is a lightbulb, Harry. A lightbulb." Sirius gestured with one as he spoke. "Lighting up is what it's for. Engineers designed it to light up. Years of innovation and improvement. Entire __production lines__ _._ " The phrase caused Sirius almost physical pleasure. "So much intention. So much purpose. It wants to light up, it's desperate to, all it needs is permission. And maybe a couple charms and a couple runes if I want it to work reliably for a few decades. It'll be fun. Muggle lighting in Number 12 Grimmauld Place."

Sirius did not skip to his worktable, but he looked as if he wanted to. "Want to cut some runes, Harry?"

"Haven't taken the class. Care of Magical Creatures and Divination instead."

"Creatures is fine, better than Kreacher anyway, but Divination is a bloody waste of time. But no matter, this is just grunt work, I'll show you how. First you find out what the rune means, then you draw it, then you cut where you drew, then you've done your bit, but the whole time you're drawing and especially when you're cutting, you have to think about what the rune means, and you have to have your intention very clear."

Harry said, "Underage magic?"

"It's fine. I'll be the one actually casting the charms, the runes just anchor them." Sirius showed him the rune scheme he'd drawn up the previous night, going over all the different runes and how they'd work together and the charms he intended to cast.

Harry said, "How do you turn them off and on?"

Sirius slapped his own forehead. "Moony, come take a look at this."

The two men hemmed and hawed over Sirius's rune scheme, and eventually concluded, after asking Harry a few questions about muggles, that they should add a rune for control and buy some muggle light switches.

Harry said, "Don't you need wires?"

"Wires?" said Sirius. "No. I'll animate the light switches so they can take instruction and read the mood, and they'll control the lights themselves. Matching runes."

Lupin left on another errand, and Harry was given a thin brush, a bottle of paint, an awl, and strict instructions as to what order the marks of the runes should be cut in. He ruined several lightbulbs before Sirius passed his wand over one, pronounced it "good enough" and threw it in the trash.

"We want better than good enough," said Sirius.

Harry hid his irritation and moved to the next one.

He'd produced four acceptable lightbulbs when Lupin returned bearing brass light switches and listened with half an ear as Sirius and Lupin discussed the charm scheme and the ward scheme for them, ruining a few more lightbulbs with his inattention.

Over the following few days, Harry finished __Within the Cauldron's Bubble__ and started both __The Warp of the Ward__ and __Reading Magic__ , having limited, ephemeral success at the exercises to sense magic. He did his occlumency exercises and started on his homework, which he'd earlier delayed in favor of reading the books Dumbledore had recommended.

Harry wrote replies to two letters. One from Ron, which was brief and mainly about Quidditch (Ron hadn't ever absorbed that Harry had only ever seen the one professional Quidditch match, and didn't listen to them on the wireless or however it was that Ron followed professional Quidditch) and another by Hermione, which was much longer and mainly talked about the books he'd been reading; she was very happy that Harry was finally reading what was on the recommended reading list, and Harry was embarrassed to realize that, with the exception of __Mind's Mortar__ , all the books Dumbledore had recommended to him were on the recommended reading list given to every student at the end of the year.

Large sections of his reply to her felt surreally like a school essay. The runes drudgery Sirius and Lupin pressed on him also felt scholastic, and Harry thought the time needed to teach him to do the drudgery cost them more time than his doing the drudgery saved.

But the hike from Ockley to Leith Hill made up for quite a number of dull afternoons, and Sirius's rowdiness more than made up for Lupin's reserve. Harry was having a devil of a time getting himself to call his former Professor __Remus__ _._ And he couldn't help but think about how the man had never contacted him at all until he'd been brought in to teach, and might never have formed any particular relationship at all if Harry hadn't wanted tutoring for the Patronus Charm, and hadn't done much of anything to maintain a relationship since until Harry had been made his housemate.

Then the man came back from an errand with a bunch of dwarf wiggentrees to clean out the ambient dark magic and tossed three shopping bags on Harry's bed.

Two packs of underwear, two packs of socks, six t-shirts, three pairs of jeans, a hooded fleece jacket and a nice pair of loafers that fit Harry perfectly after Lupin cast a spell.

"Noticed you didn't bring much with you," said Lupin.

"Left it in the wash at the Dursleys," said Harry, staring at the clothing. No more turning his underwear inside out. The clothing looked too small, but he tore his shirt off, tried one on, and it fit well, not tight at all. He was just too used to wearing Dudley's baggy hand-me-downs. His voice was rough when he said "Thanks."

"Don't thank me. It's Sirius's money."

"I'll pay him back," said Harry.

Lupin looked amused, "First you'll have to tell him that he didn't notice his godson wearing the same mangled, overlarge shirt twice in four days, then you'll have to convince him that he, as the man who thinks he ought to be your guardian, shouldn't pay for your clothing while you live with him. Or you could mention at dinner that Moony picked up some more clothes for you, since a young man can seldom have too many, and thank him for it."

"I guess I'll thank him," muttered Harry.

Lupin said, "These are still too few to be a proper wardrobe, so I suggest that when you get the chance you go shopping and pick out what you like, rather than being dressed by your goduncle or whatever I am to you."

Lupin left for another errand, and Harry stared after him. Buying his own clothing. That hadn't ever occurred to him before. With the exception of his school uniform, using money to buy clothing was something he'd never done.

Harry changed, blinked into the mirror, realizing that all the past times he'd worn clothing that fit properly it had been wizarding robes, and wizarding robes didn't make anyone look athletic.

In the bottom of one bag he found a leather belt and some toiletries. He'd been using the ever-fresh charm while at school since near the beginning of third-year, but having actual deodorant was nice.

He folded his clothing and put it carefully in the dresser.

It felt like Christmas.

Earlier, when Harry had fantasized about getting all Os on his OWLs, he'd imagined Snape looking outraged, Hermione looking pleased and giving him a hug, and Dumbledore mentioning briefly that he'd was doing well.

He read the next chapter of __The Warp of the Ward__ on the treadmill, imagining Sirius tousling his head, Lupin smiling quietly at the side, and the two of them getting him a cake to celebrate.

Lupin returned from one his myriad errands, and a vaguely familiar voice wafted up the stairs. Harry went down to investigate and found Lupin taking a blindfold off a tall red-head. Bill Weasley.

Harry shook his hand, and Sirius shook Bill's hand and talked a little about how much taller Bill was than the last time he'd seen him (pre-Azkaban) before saying, "I'll come around with you to learn a little more about my wards, and if you don't mind, could you explain as much to Harry as you've got time to?"

Bill glanced at the cover of the book Harry was still holding and asked him a few questions about wards, determining that Harry basically knew what the basics were. Bill took Harry around as he found the center and the poles. Harry wished he'd already finished __The Warp of the Ward__ so he'd have more idea of what Bill was saying, but Bill put in enough rudimentary explanations that Harry figured he'd heard most of what a Professor might say on the fourth day of 'Intro to Wards' or whatnot.

Once Bill had gotten a handle on the house's wards (he seemed impressed), Sirius led them to the main event.

Sirius and Lupin pulled back a pair of velvet curtains that had been stuck together, revealing the portrait of a screaming lunatic.

"Filth, half-breeds, blood traitors, shame to the house of my fathers!"

Sirius and Lupin covered the portrait in silencing charms, even after which Harry could still hear a quiet whine. Being silenced hadn't slowed her mouth.

"Told you you'd meet my mum," said Sirius. "Silencers don't last against her, even if I anchor them with runes. She's built right into the house wards. Can't remove the sticking charm on the back of her, can't burn her without burning a hole in my wards, and she wears at spells. The sticking charms on the curtains come apart after a day or two."

Bill was running his wand and a free hand over the portrait and the wall, muttering spells, a parchment hung suspended in the air filling with lines and symbols.

After twenty minutes, Harry grabbed a chair to sit on as he kept at his book.

The portrait of Sirius's mother, (Mrs. Black, Harry supposed) got a little louder, and Bill paused to freshen the silence charms.

After nearly two hours, Bill called Lupin and Sirius back into the room. He turned to Harry. "Thoughts?"

"It's on an interior wall. I assume we can't just remove the interior wall, but why not?"

"Aside from the fact that it's load bearing, both structurally and wardwise?"

Harry nodded. He hadn't thought of that.

"Why do you think?" said Bill.

It seemed to Harry that, aside from the problems Bill had pointed out, removing the wall ought to work, but obviously it wouldn't or Bill wouldn't be smiling like that. "The Charm says that the portrait is attached to a wall, so if we removed this wall, she'd just attach to another wall?"

"And if we tried to catch her on the way, we'd be pulling against the wards of the house." Then Bill explained all that to Sirius and Lupin in technical details that went well over Harry's head, and concluded by saying "Extricating this without damaging the wards or dropping them for a few hours will take time, but it's not as if I have anything more important to do, and it should be interesting."

Bill began making marks on the wall with a grease pen.

Sirius said, "How much will I owe you?"

"Nothing," said Bill. "I'm doing this because Professor Dumbledore asked."

"He asked you to do work for a fugitive, he didn't say you had to do it for free. I'd accept that if I didn't have the money, but I do. Log your hours, and I'll pay you double the rate Gringotts does."

"I can't take accept double."

"If Dumbledore hadn't asked, you'd be demanding that and more. I don't see why I should take any more handouts than I have to." Sirius's eyes were fierce as they met those of the oldest Weasley brother, and Bill nodded.

"Double it is. It'll probably take between sixty and a hundred hours. Just because I have to remove the painting without damaging the wards."

Bill spoke only occasionally as he worked, pressing needles into the wall, deliberating at length over where exactly each one ought to be put and how far down each one ought to be pressed, and Harry wondered what he was supposed to be learning other than that working with wards could be exacting, time-consuming work.

Sirius popped back in to ask Bill if he'd had lunch, and Bill said, "I ate with Fleur," then seemed to regret it.

"Fleur?" said Bill. "Not that sexy young woman from the tournament?"

"She just started at Gringotts. Says she wants to improve her English. She doesn't know anyone, and we met at the tournament, before the third task, you remember, so we've been talking a little." He sounded defensive.

"Talking?" said Sirius, raising an eyebrow. "Just how far has your __talking__ gone."

"It's not like that. She's too young. It would be like dating Percy."

Harry could think of several interesting differences between Fleur Delacour and Percy Weasley. Sirius must've thought the same, because he roared with laughter.

Lupin wandered back in, sipping tea.

Sirius said, "I bet you've never had to drag your eyes away from Percy Weasley's inviting lips."

Bill said, "Every wizard at Gringotts turns into an annoying braggart around her. The fact that I don't have to drag my eyes from her lips is why we talk."

Lupin said, "As a cursebreaker, you've learned to defend against compulsions."

"There's a particular type of occlumency," said Bill.

Harry perked up. That was discussed in __Mind's Mortar__ , but he'd been more concerned with occlumency to resist legilimency.

Lupin said, "But even without her allure, you've certainly noticed she's an exceptionally beautiful young woman. No, don't protest, it's obvious. Perhaps you're right that it would be boorish to act on that, or even show it. But William, has she not shown any signs of being interested in you?"

"Well..."

"No long looks. No bumping of hands? Not slipping her arm through yours?"

"She's too young."

"She's an adult, legally and socially. If you're physically attracted but you think she's a simpering eighteen-year-old, then yes, stay away. But if you're attracted emotionally and mentally, then you shouldn't let six years get in the way of what could be love."

"Six years and ten months," said Bill, without hesitation. "Maybe when she's a little older."

Lupin said, "She's not going to catch up."

"Proportionally she will, but look, it's not just age. I'm not her direct superior, we're in different departments, but I am higher ranked, and she's already got half the men in the bank making passes at her. Like I said. It's all based on that I don't woo her."

Sirius said, "I think young William may be on to something there. Fleur is used to men eating out of her hand. Keep playing hard to get."

"I'm not playing."

"Even better if it's authentic. But don't drag your feet too much. When she makes a pass at you, act like you're interested, but not overwhelmed, and like you think she's too young."

"That's what I already do." said Bill.

Sirius said, "See Moony, he knows what he's doing."

"I'm not-you're impossible."

Harry said, "Generally speaking, how does a wizard attract the attention of a witch?"

Three curious pairs of eyes turned to Harry, and the men hid smiles.

"Tell them you love them," said Sirius. "It's quick, you can approach twenty in an afternoon."

Lupin said, "Just be yourself."

"Ignore Moony," said Sirius, "He'd be a virgin if it weren't for me and James."

Lupin said, "James didn't have any success with Lily till he started acting like himself instead of following your damn playbook. And I'll have you know I've done alright myself this past decade, factoring in my condition."

Sirius snorted and imitated Lupin in a high-pitched voice. "Factoring in my condition."

Bill said, "Be yourself, but your best, most confident, self. Shyness and awkwardness can be endearing, but they're poor substitutes for being impressive. Plan what you'll say beforehand, not so it'll be manipulative, but so it will be eloquent. And be sure to dress sharp. Look into getting a leather jacket. You've got the scars to pull it off."

Sirius and Lupin looked at Bill, and Sirius said, "If you can be almost embarrassingly soulful like that, then end with a flash of humor, you're golden. The man being crushed on by a part-veela may be worth listening to."

Lupin asked if there was a particular girl he was interested in, which Sirius took as a perfect intro to tease Harry about whoever he had a crush on (for a fugitive, the man knew a shocking amount about his schoolmates) and even Lupin and Bill joined in a little on the ribbing.

Harry answered in grunts and shrugs, cheeks burning.

When Bill finally left, saying he expected to return with Lupin Monday night, Harry considered the embarrassment he'd suffered well worth it.

The most important thing he'd learned had nothing to do with wards.

:::

This story will not primarily be a romance, but, perhaps, secondarily a romance. Harry/Hermione is my standard jam, but I make no promises.

I expect that Harry will be at Hogwarts or on his way to it by the end of the next chapter.

I wrote a book. An original one. Sort of inspired by disliking Twilight/Atlas Shrugged, which, little-known-fact, are actually the same book. Monstrosity, by JLL, available on Amazon. Please, please, please review it.

I know canon Sirius hates being trapped in Grimmauld Place. This Sirius does too. But as much as he hated Grimmauld Place, he hated his uselessness in the face of Voldemort's return even more. This time, Voldemort hasn't returned and his godson and best friend are living with him, and clearing him is somewhere on the first page of Dumbledore's very long to-do list, so we see a much happier and more productive Sirius.

I am not quite sure when, canonically, Fleur started working at Gringotts, but it should've been sometime not too long after the end of book four, since, before Harry's sixth year starts, Bill and Fleur are already engaged, and Ron states they've known each other for a year. For this fic, I'm presuming she had the job offer lined up before leaving school.


	4. Chapter 4

**Harry sat on a wicker chair on the small roof deck at the top of Grimmauld Place, a dwarf wiggentree on either side, enjoying the sunny weather.**

He had just sent Hedwig with a letter to Professor McGonagall, and was reading a much, much longer letter from Hermione. She was spending time in Europe with her parents and Viktor Krum had spent a couple days with them in Barcelona. But most of the letter was, again, about academics. It seemed she was interested in most careers.

A journalist, though she didn't know what newspaper or magazine she'd like. A barrister. A Ministry official. An unspeakable, though she wished there was more public information about what exactly they did. A wardcrafter. A product designer. A potioneer or a business woman.

For Hermione, the problem was that they were all so wonderful it was hard to choose.

Harry's thoughts on the matter were shorter and more focused on all the things he didn't like about each job.

Hermione's long section on magical theory was easier to address, even if he did have to re-read some sections of __The Character of Magic__ to write a proper reply.

A change in the weather drove him off the roof well before he'd finished his letter, and he continued it at the coffee table in the den.

He was still there when Severus Snape came through the floo, holding a bottle.

Harry dropped the letter he was writing, grabbed his wand, and Snape stared at him.

Harry said, "I thought the floo was disconnected."

"It only connects to the Headmaster's office," said Snape. "Fetch the beast."

"Kreacher!" The house-elf, who Harry had hardly spoken to since the first time, appeared. "Immediately tell Remus Lupin that Severus Snape just came through the floo."

The house-elf disappeared with a pop.

Snape said, "The Headmaster tells me you're practicing occlumency."

"For about half an hour, every day."

"Typical. The Headmaster impresses on you the importance of learning a skill, and you devote one-thirty-second of your waking hours to it."

Harry knew he should be angry. Normally he would be. 'Anger management issues,' Hermione occasionally said. But instead, he was just looking at Snape, sort of curious as to why the man had said that. "It's summer, Severus."

"Professor Snape," said Snape.

"And five points from Gryffindor for saying it wrong? Sorry Severus, but you're only Professor Snape when school's in session. This is summer. I've been relaxing." He reclined against the couch and indicated the telly. It wasn't yet operational, but Snape didn't know that. "And doing my homework and some reading."

"Dr. Suess, I'm sure," said Snape.

A muggle reference. From the head of Slytherin. "Careful there, Severus, you might lose your position if Lucius finds out you know what that is. Unless, is he a fan?"

Snape favored Harry with a small and rather mean smile. "Oh, but you have been studying your occlumency."

Before Harry could ask what he meant by that, Sirius and Lupin came down.

"Snivellus," said Sirius.

"Mutt," said Snape.

"Thanks for coming," said Lupin.

Snape glared, took the cork from the bottle he held and offered Lupin the steaming potion. The man downed it and grimaced.

"Wolfsbane," Lupin explained to Harry. "Snape has been kind enough to continue providing me with the potion even though I am no longer on staff."

Sirius said, "Kind enough to use him as a lab rat more like."

Lupin said, "If I can contribute in some small manner to a better version of the wolfsbane potion there will be few things in my life I'll be more proud of."

Snape said, "You will log the effects. And give me a copy of the memory. And the blood and saliva samples."

The way Lupin bit back a sigh suggested he'd heard those requests more than once before. "Everything will be done as normal. Any particular hopes for this version?"

"Yes," said Snape, and nothing more.

Then Snape said, "Much as I hate to be here, there remains one task to be performed. I will test the boy's occlumency."

Harry had half-expected this. Lupin had become adept at hiding the particular secret that was his lycanthropy, and Sirius, in Azkaban, had made a practice of the sort of occlumency that blunted the effect of dementors (as Sirius explained it, the basic tactic was to focus on facts which were positive and certain, but neither happy nor sentimental), but otherwise both men had learned occlumency only to the level of 'detect-and-hex'-notice the legilimency, suppress the experience of it, and curse the legilimens.

Dumbledore wanted Harry aiming higher.

He needed Dumbledore or Snape's help for that, and Dumbledore was busy.

Harry wished Dumbledore had cleared some time.

Snape said, "I will not coddle you as the Headmaster has, gently searching for a single agreed-upon memory. This will be an all-out assault on your mind, exactly what any enemies you might have are likely to do."

"You had better not over-do it," said Sirius.

"Do not presume to tell me how to teach what you have never bothered to master."

"From what I hear, 'how to teach' is what you've never bothered to master."

Lupin said, "Sirius, could you wait in the other room?"

"It's my house."

"I think it would be better if there were less tension while Harry's learning occlumency."

Snape said, "Yes, you'll disturb the boy with your howling."

"Protect him from you, more like. You plan to hurt him and enjoy it."

"Unlike you, I am not a sadist."

Harry said, "Neville might disagree with that, but I'll be fine. Seriously."

Sirius said, "If it's fine, I can stay."

Lupin said, "It's going to hurt. Pain is part of learning to defend against legilimency. No different from dueling practice."

 _ _Mind's Mortar__ had made that clear, but Harry didn't like the idea of letting Snape hurt him. It was different from letting Dumbledore do it. Still. "Padfoot, I think it would be better if you were in another room."

Sirius looked hurt, so Harry said, "Or if you could stay here, and just not say anything. Me and Snape hate each other plenty without you getting involved. Just think how you'd feel if you had to cooperate with him and I kept telling him how he's a better scarecrow than a teacher?" 

Sirius laughed.

Snape snarled. " _Legilimens_."

It wasn't like with Dumbledore. Snape hit his walls like a battering ram. Harry focused on the moment, showing Snape nothing but his awareness of Snape attacking him. Snape pushed past that, into memory, half an hour spent lying on his belly to befriend a neighbor's cat, working in the garden on a hot day and drinking water from a hose, getting his Hogwarts letter.

Harry hit, and hit again, mashing his will into the intruder.

Dumbledore had been gentler, but immovable, unaffected by Harry's attempts to force him out. Snape was rougher, but less invincible. It was the difference between punching a mountain and punching a gorilla. Beating a gorilla was as impossible, except he had what he'd been missing against Dumbledore.

Anger.

He didn't want Severus Snape in his head.

OUT! OUT! OUT! Bright green light, noises so loud they hurt, a basilisk fang going through his arm, an arm broken by a bludger, a splitting headache when Quirrell looked at him, memories so short they made no sense, just pain, and all the while, pushing Sanpe OUT OUT OUT!

He came back to himself in the middle of the den, stomach upset, head aching. Lupin handed him a glass of water and he sipped it as he slowly sat up.

Professor Snape was massaging his left temple, but appeared otherwise unaffected. "Either you are even less talented than I had imagined or you are practicing even less than I had imagined. Your ability to hit is not completely without promise, but your shields are weak and clumsy. As for the hitting, easy though it may be, pain and anger are not what you really need. Clear, hardened resolve, that is what your strikes must be made of."

Harry nodded, telling himself to listen to Snape, even as he thought that anger had worked fine and Snape was the last person he wanted to listen to.

Snape said, "You contain certain blocks, but they are old, and seem to be weakening, not strengthening. I trust you won't be enough of a dunderhead to seal parts of yourself off as you learn to compartmentalize?"

"Yes."

"We will try again the day after tomorrow, and you will attempt one of the other approaches."

Instead of immersing himself in the moment, he'd have to think of nothing, or think stubbornly of something in particular.

With a sweep of his robes and a final glare at Sirius, Professor Snape disappeared through the floo.

Sirius said, "Thank Merlin, the git is gone."

Harry shrugged and lay on his back, thinking. He was happy Snape had left, and wasn't looking forward to Snape's return, but he hadn't been angry like usual. Just irritated. Calmer. He hadn't even needed to control himself.

 _ _Mind's Mortar__ claimed that learning occlumency did not suppress or weaken emotion. But it could make you more objective. What you observed was understood impersonally and then related to the self, rather than understood personally and then related to wider reality. Or something like that. He was sure he didn't entirely get it.

Useful though.

#

#

Harry was drawing a llama.

At first, he'd been drawing a cat, but then it had looked like a horse, so he'd tried making it a better horse, but it had ended up looking like a cat again, so he'd tried to make it a better cat, but now it was definitely some kind of llama.

Sirius had the telly working intermittently, though it mostly only showed art lessons by an American muggle named Bob Ross. Harry had taken that as a sign that he ought to starting drawing, but he could only make so many 'happy little accidents' before he began to wonder how much drawing really helped with Transfiguration.

It was a welcome distraction when Lupin sat in the chair next to his. The werewolf was still pale from his transformation two days ago, but he seemed better than Harry remembered him being in the same time span at school.

Lupin had told Snape,"The potion didn't make me feel so ill, and the transformation was less painful, but the mind of the beast was not as suppressed."

Snape had asked, "Was the beast's mind different at all?"

"Not so far as I could tell."

Both men had seemed pleased enough at the results, though Harry hadn't been pleased that, after hours of working on the other approaches, Snape had told him he was best suited to submerging himself in the moment, the type of occlumency he'd tried in the first place.

Lupin dropped four socks on the table, and Harry brightened. This he was better at. One of the exercises from __Reading Magic__ _._

Harry passed a hand over the socks. He grabbed the one on the center-left. "This is conjured." It was bland, and without depth. "This one," the far right, "is transfigured from a feather. No. Transfigured from a feather that was transfigured from something else. Transfigured from a sock?"

"Transfigured from a mitten," said Lupin, and smiled as Harry acknowledged what a good play that was.

Harry said, "These two are real, and this one is charmed." He did not touch the charmed one. "A sticking charm on the inside?"

"Correct. Now show me that Defense homework."

Harry handed him the essay, and Lupin read it over while Harry drew two trees and a man made of boxes.

Lupin said, "You've incorporated my suggestions well. All your homework is done now, correct?"

"Correct."

"Come on then. We've something to show you."

Lupin led him to a room on the third floor. Sirius was there, adjusting two rack of vials next to a very wide black bowl.

"Happy early Birthday," said Sirius. "This pensieve is yours to use so long as you're here, and these memories are yours to peruse. You know how to work a pensieve?"

"A little," said Harry.

Lupin pointed to one rack of labeled vials. "Memories of the practical portions of our OWL exams, and of a few exceptionally good lessons, and of watching Dumbledore fight. You'll find those very instructive in demonstrating how spells taught in charms and transfiguration can be very useful in a fight, if used creatively."

"Shut it, Moony," said Sirius, pointing to another rack. "This here is the real prize. Memories me and Remus have of your parents."

Harry gasped. Both men were grinning broadly, but their eyes were wet. Lupin said, "There's more of James than Lily, I'm afraid."

Sirius said, "Remus made me keep out some of our less emotionally sensitive pranks. Now, for using the pensieve. Usually, people use their wands, but that could be a problem with the restriction on underage magic. So," Sirius held up a thin silver rod. "This item will do. You can extract memories from your head, put them in the pensieve, put them back in your head, put memories in vials, the whole bit."

Sirius demonstrated, and watched at Harry put the memory from a vial in, then put it back in the vial, then took a memory from his head and put it in the pensieve, then put it back in his head.

Harry nodded, hardly able to speak, and the older men left him alone with the memories.

#

#

Young Lily Evans had been a firecracker, reminding him simultaneously of Hermione and the latest incarnation of Ginny Weasley. Brilliant, fiery, hard-working, and ever-ready with a hex, imprecations against the stupidity of certain wizardly customs always at her lips.

She addressed James Potter as 'Arrogant Toerag' up until their seventh year, and was frequently in the common room with 'Alice and Marlene,' and occasionally mentioned someone named 'Sev,' who she was apparently friends with.

Harry made a note to try to look up all three and get pensieve memories from them, since most of what Sirius and Lupin had provided was of James.

Young James Potter had been charming and intelligent, kind and loyal to his friends, and a bit of a jerk to everyone else, a flaw he seemed to have started outgrowing sometime in his sixth year, which seemed to have been a necessary requirement for Lily to consider seriously his repeated proposals for a date.

James reminded Harry more of a smarter, smoother Ron than of Harry himself.

Young Sirius was much the same, but more high-strung, almost brooding. In the most recent memories, those from after graduation but before his incarceration, he was much like the modern Sirius-Harry supposed people didn't grow much emotionally while in Azkaban.

Watching Sirius hold baby Harry, seeing his own eyes in the pudgy face, was disorienting.

Young Remus was the conscience of the group, encouraging them to be responsible and to remove the slight streak of jerkiness that wound through many of their pranks, but he was seldom forceful enough to moderate them more than a little, or even at all.

Pettigrew went along with whatever the others said. The less thought about that, the better.

It took till past four in the morning for Harry to get through all the memories of his parents, but tired though he was, there was one more memory he needed to see.

After hearing so much about what a great wizard Dumbledore was, he wasn't going to bed before watching the fight.

He tipped the appropriate vial in and touched his finger to the water.

Five minutes later, he watched it again. Then a third time, trying to take it in.

The kindly old man he was used to had been replaced by an avenging Greek god. He'd used so much transfiguration the entire landscape had seemed to attack the Death Eaters. Lightning had flashed, the ground had risen, and fire had fallen like rain. Dumbledore had bellowed out in a voice like thunder for 'Tom' to come and face him, and the memory showed a single glimpse of Voldemort high tailing it out of there.

Harry couldn't imagine ever getting on that level.

Lethal spells had been flung around, but the memory held no gore. Several parts were fogged out, and Harry suspected that was from Lupin hiding the deaths and bodies.

He watched the memory of a second fight, his heart in throat. Harry panicked, occasionally shouting even though he knew they'd all survived.

Sirius, Remus, James and Lily fighting Voldemort together. The four of them, aged only nineteen or twenty, were not a match him. They were pushed back, worn down, injured, all of them using standard defense spells except for James, who fought like Dumbledore in miniature. Not so powerful, not so skilled, but the same reliance on transfiguration.

Just as the death of one of the four seemed imminent, Dumbledore appeared in a flash of Phoenix flame. A short, sharp exchange, Harry startled to see that Dumbledore was aiming to kill, not capture. He didn't use the Killing Curse, but there was nothing non-lethal in banishing a hundred steel spikes at someone at high speed.

Voldemort fled again, Dumbledore hot on his heels, but 'The Dark Lord' escaped to the edge of the apparition jinx and disapparated.

Harry rewatched it.

From what he could see, Dumbledore was stronger, and more aggressive.

He watched it again, and his breath caught. Something in the way Dumbledore was defending himself. They were too far above his level to be sure, but Dumbledore seemed almost reckless.

When Harry finally understood, it was not because he understood the fight, but because he knew Albus Dumbledore.

Dumbledore was leaving openings that Voldemort would have to drastically overextend himself to take it. But they weren't fake openings, he didn't think. Dumbledore was willing to to die so long as he took Voldemort down with him.

Voldemort was not, and so he ran.

History class was best used for napping, but the textbooks had always interested Harry, and it turned out that history books that weren't textbooks were even more interesting. He'd devoured __You-Know-What War__ in a day and half.

The Ministry had been stronger at every point in the war. They'd had the skill and bravery of the Aurors and hit-wizards. The assistance of continental veterans of Gindelwald's War who remembered how Britain had assisted them. No shortage of common citizens, some quite formidable, willing to die rather than submit to a Dark Lord.

But after watching those memories, Harry had no trouble believing the book's claim that the number one reason Magical Britain had held Voldemort off until October 31st, 1981, was Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Percival Wulfric 'Scary Motherfucker' Brian Dumbledore.

Though he preferred to capture, if possible, he'd killed more Death Eaters than anyone but Alastor Moody, and had captured more than any other two people put together. He'd chased Voldemort off again and again, once injuring him enough that the Death Eaters had been quiet for months, the boosts to morale from his victories nearly as important as the victories themselves.

And he had ensured the security of Hogwarts. Harry had wondered at everyone's firm conviction that Hogwarts was the safest place in Britain despite Harry's having faced a life threatening plot every year he'd been there, but the war made clear why.

Students had died over vacation, at family homes, at markets, at parks, but not at Hogwarts. Voldemort and his Death Eaters had never dared to attack it, not so long as Dumbledore called it home. As the war had raged on, most students had stopped leaving during the holidays, and it had even been kept open over the summer for two years.

A quote from Dumbledore went: ' _I was torn between two duties. I had to hunt Voldemort and his forces, yet I had to remain at the school to keep the children safe. I wished fiercely that there were two of me.'_

Yet despite it all, Voldemort had been winning.

The 'Wizarding War' had started years before most were aware of it. The most notable witches and wizards in Britain had begun dying in freak accidents or apparent suicides. Foul play had been suspected, in some cases verified, but it was a long step from 'someone murdered Virginia Maybrock,' to 'a Dark Lord bent on conquering Britain is methodically picking off those who could oppose him.'

But concerns had grown with each death, and as the investigations had closed in, Voldemort had revealed himself by wiping out the Muggle-borns Union office in Diagon Ally.

The ensuing conflict had been nasty and asymmetric. The forces never met in the open battle the Ministry would easily win.

The Ministry was more or less democratic, more or less public. The Death Eaters had struck and run, struck and run, chipping away, and the Ministry could not respond in kind because they didn't know where the Death Eaters were hiding, couldn't find their bases or even identify in most cases who was behind the masks. And they, accustomed to police actions, not war (the magical world had known few wars of wizards versus wizard, and even Grindelwald's War had largely been confined to the continent) had fought to capture, while the Death Eaters had fought to kill.

With every murder, Voldemort had grown closer to taking control.

Then Voldemort had attacked little baby Harry Potter, and a miracle had occurred, the war over in a single night.

Mostly over. The Longbottoms... Harry resolved to be nice to Neville.

Imagining a new war, one without Dumbledore, or with a Dumbledore too old to chase Voldemort off...

Tired though he was, Harry took a long time to fall asleep.

#

#

Harry came down for breakfast around lunch time and found Bill hard at work on the portrait. He nodded to the red-head, went to the kitchen, ate two scones with a cup of tea, and went back to help Bill, which mostly consisted of handing the man tools he could've just as easily grabbed himself.

Harry couldn't see magic (only extremely advanced wizards could, and then not well, and besides, from what he read, magic wasn't best expressed as visual information anyway) but he was making progress at feeling wards.

"Is the third tarpal supposed to be wriggling like that?"

Bill said, "Bit clumsy, but I'm separating it from from the L strut."

"Huh." Why though? He hadn't figured it out yet when Sirius and Lupin came up from the basement, flushed and breathing deeply in the way they always did after dueling practice.

Harry said, "Good morning."

Sirius said, "Good afternoon, Pronglet. Bill, how's it going?"

"Steadily. I'll have her off in another two or three weeks of scattered evenings."

Sirius addressed the silence painting, which was once more shouting unheard imprecations. He said cheerily, "Hear that, Mum? I'll be throwing you in the fireplace soon enough."

Bill said, "I'm sorry, but we do have a problem. Not with the painting. I was out with Fleur this morning-"

Sirius said, "You abandoned Fleur to be with us?"

Bill said, "I was tempted to tell her I was going to go assist an innocent fugitive in his further attempts to stay safe from a corrupt government that wants to shut him up, but instead I told her I was taking care of a troublesome Sticking Charm for a friend."

Sirius rolled his eyes.

Bill said, "The problem is that while I was telling her why I couldn't stay for a show, I may have mentioned that Harry would be assisting me."

Sirius growled and Lupin looked pained.

"I know. It was a mistake. I wasn't thinking. But everyone already knows the Weasley family is close to him. But it is a problem. She wants to take Harry shopping. To thank him for his help in the maze. And she might bring her little sister, who apparently has had a horrible crush on Harry ever since the Second Task."

Harry felt very uncomfortable. "How old is she? Eight?"

"Nine," said Bill. "Come on Harry, what's the trouble, not even five years, compared to me and Fleur..."

Harry did his best to imitate how Snape glared, and Bill laughed at him.

Lupin said, "Sorry Bill, but I'm afraid a shopping trip with Fleur won't work."

Sirius said, "No, it should be fine. Remus, you're already taking him out in public to Diagon Alley to get his stuff. Just extend the day. It'd be good for him to spend a little time with someone closer to his own age."

"Security..."

Harry said, "I know Voldemort just tried to kidnap me, but we have every reason to think he won't be up to trying that again for months. Years even."

Bill said, "You-Know-Who did what?"

Oh. "Sorry Bill, could you forget it I said that?" Then to Sirius and Lupin, "It's not like I haven't been out and about before, and there was never so much concern for security. My first year Hagrid took me, and he left me alone at Madam Malkin's to get fitted."

Sirius and Lupin looked uncomfortable. Lupin said, "There may have been more security than you realized. People in disguise, guarding you, but not looking like they were guarding you."

Sirius said, "Probably best not to bother you with it at 11, but I insisted at the start of this summer that from now on you'll know about the security around you. I think Dumbledore agreed. He was a little vague, but he certainly gave the impression of agreement. Anyway, a shopping trip oughta be fine, especially if it's just extending school shopping. Harry, what do you think?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to go shopping with Fleur, but Bill gave him a look, so he said, "Once I get my letter, we'll choose the day. I should be getting my letter soon."

Lupin tossed him an envelope. "It got here this morning, sleepyhead."

Within the yellowed parchment, a bulge. He ripped the envelope open, and the badge fell into his hand, red and gold, with a large P on the front.

I'm a prefect," said Harry.

"I can see that," said Sirius.

"My grades really aren't good enough for me to be a prefect, but there's only five Gryffindor fifth-year boys, so I knew I might get it." He looked at the badge. "I'm a prefect."

Sirius said, "So we've established. If your smile gets any wider, the top of your head will fall off. A bloody prefect. Staid and boring." But he was smiling.

"I was a prefect," said Lupin.

"Like I said, staid and boring. But bloody well done, Harry."

Lupin said, "Lily was a prefect."

"That, well, yes, no one would call Lily boring."

Harry attached the badge to the collar of his jacket and went to stare at himself in the mirror, thinking he looked quite good with the shiny red and gold badge. He spotted a bit of sealing wax on it, rubbed at it with a hand towel, and stopped when he remembered Percy.

There was nothing wrong with keeping the badge spiffy. Percy had just done it too often, that was all. Harry would cast a couple charms on it as soon as he got on the train and he wouldn't have to worry about it.

He smiled at himself in the mirror and went back into the hall, pulling out the rest of his letter, grinning again at an item on his booklist. McGonagall had come through.

Lupin said, "We should get the books soon so you can start studying."

"What have I been doing all summer then?"

Lupin said, "You've been learning theory, which is excellent. Understanding theory improves your practical abilities. If you know what you're doing, your spells are stronger, quicker, more flexible and better controlled. You learn and remember new ones more easily. You're able to respond effectively to spells you don't know."

Sirius said, "Even James and I had to wrap our heads around theory eventually. Couldn't plan pranks properly without it."

Lupin continued, "But this is about more than understanding theory and mastery of magic. It's about getting good marks on your exams."

That sounded so much like Hermione that Harry snorted, but to his surprise, Sirius just nodded. Sirius must've caught his look, because he said, "Everything else can go hang, but your scores in Charms, Transfiguration, Defense and Potions are important. You need them to get the right NEWT classes, and you need good NEWTs to have whatever career you'd like."

Sirius continued, "It's all a game, and one of the rules of the game is 'get good grades when it matters and where it matters.' Grades are a game too. But if you understand how the test works, you can manipulate the rules, and get Os with minimal effort. It's almost like a prank."

Hermione would've had a lot to say about that, and he expected Lupin to say it for her, but he only said, "It would be best if you actually mastered the material. But truthfully, there are very few skills you can learn that are more important than how to game a system."

Sirius gave Lupin a sad smile, "Moony and I have obviously struggled at it of late. Remus, what did James get on his OWLs?"

Lupin leaned against the wall. "If we looked into it, we could find the results. But it was mostly Os and EEs, as I remember. Definitely an O in Transfiguration. Defense too. We all got EEs in Potions, except for the traitor."

"James got an EE in Charms, I remember that, he was pissy about me doing better."

Lupin said, "Didn't you get a T in History of Magic?"

"My essay was pictographic, and the examiners lacked the intelligence to appreciate it. What did James get? An A maybe?"

"I think it was an EE. Got an A on his history NEWT. Class didn't matter for his career goals, he said."

Harry said, "And my mother?"

Sirius scratched his head. "She and James weren't dating yet, so I don't quite remember. I do remember her NEWT results. Os in everything but History and Herbology, and she had EEs in those."

Lupin said, "She would've gotten an EE in Defense if we hadn't all been training like mad for the war."

Both men fell silent, and Harry struggled to imagine what it would be like to attend school in the middle of a war, training at Defense with the intention of fighting in the war once you'd graduated, knowing some of your schoolmates would on the other side, trying to kill you.

Harry said, "Joint Defense class with Slytherin must've been tense."

Both men laughed, but uncomfortably, full of bad memories. Lupin said, "It went well past pranking, on both sides. At the time, I thought it was a taste of war. Then we graduated, and found out what a real war is like."

Bill, who'd been watching silently, said, "About that shopping trip with Fleur..."

Sirius said, "Would next Saturday work? You, Remus and probably an extra from Dumbledore should be plenty."

Remus said, "His birthday's the Monday after. Which should be fine, I just have to make sure."

Sirius nodded, and Harry wondered what his birthday had to do with it.

:::

Summer is taking more chapters than I expected. HP Fanfics sometimes include these incredible summers where Harry packs three years of growth and learning into one nine-week vacation. This will hopefully not be like that.

I'm assuming that their late Hogwarts letters prior to fifth-year were a result of all the other stuff that was going on that summer, what with Voldemort back and all.

Harry is currently caught up in the throes of hero worship. He'll recover, and adopt a more measured view of Dumbledore.

I'd like this fic to be compliant with canon aside from the (many) changes caused by the events of the first chapter. As such, I'm assuming that Dumbledore tried to capture Voldemort at the Department of Mysteries at the end of OotP not because he's totally unwilling to kill, but because, due to Voldemort's horcruxes, capturing was the more permanent solution than killing. And capturing would enable him to find the horcruxes easily.

When I say canon, I mean the first seven books and nothing else.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Valuable Objects**

Harry stood in Lockhart's office, along with Little-Harry, Little-Hermione, Little-Ron, Lockhart, Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape. It was just after they'd found Mrs. Norris petrified during Harry's second year, and Little-Harry was untruthfully insisting that they'd been there for no particular reason at all.

Harry walked around, looking closely at the teacher's faces. None of them seemed to actually believe Little-Harry, but he thought that they thought that Little-Harry was simply hiding some childish rule-breaking. Except Dumbledore, maybe. After all, the Headmaster had later called him to his office to ask if there was anything he'd like to tell him.

Pensieves were amazing. The gist of the theory was that they used memories as components in informational time machines. The important result being that they showed accurate details that the source of the memory might not have ever seen at all.

Harry mainly used the pensieve to observe himself.

It was subtle, but Little-Harry was quite frightened. After watching a few related scenes, including some back at the Dursleys, Harry thought he understood. Little-Harry had grown up hearing that he was a freak, and then he'd gone to Hogwarts, where he wasn't a freak, or not in a bad way, but then he'd had an ability that might make him a freak even at Hogwarts. No wonder he'd refused to tell.

He winced when Ron told him that he'd been right to not tell because 'hearing voices no else can hear isn't a good sign.' Just one more example of Ron being less than helpful. Though Ron had at least stuck with him that year.

Reviewing memories in the pensieve, Harry had spent a lot of time futilely yelling at his various past selves to listen to Hermione rather than Ron and he wondered how differently things might've gone if Hermione were a boy and Ron were a girl.

Though there were times, like this one, really, when Hermione had been wrong along with Ron. And even times when Harry had been right and Hermione had been wrong. They just weren't as common as the reverse.

The memory ended, and he came to with Lupin's hand on his shoulder. "Ready to go in ten minutes, Harry?"

He drew the memory from the pensieve, feeling it become clearer than it had ever been when he put the memory back in his head, where it linked up with the memory of watching it in the pensieve. "I just need to put my shoes on."

A few minutes later, he and Lupin apparated from Grimmauld's stoop to the apparition point just inside Diagon Alley.

He kept his feet, though just barely, pulled himself upright ignoring the queasiness of his stomach, and saw Bill coming forward with a pink-haired woman he didn't recognize.

Lupin said, "You must be Nymphadora Tonks," and stretched out a hand.

"Just Tonks. You must be Remus Lupin. And you..." she looked to Harry. "You're shorter than I thought."

Harry blinked. "Makes me a small target."

Tonks said, "Good to know you've made peace with it. Lupin, I'll be keeping my distance and being inconspicuous."

Harry said, "With pink hair?"

Tonks grinned, and her hair turned brown.

Harry's mouth made a surprised O, and Harry, Lupin and Bill walked into the Alley proper as Tonks slunk behind them.

They made for Flourish and Blotts, and when Harry looked behind himself he couldn't pick Tonks out from the crowd.

Lupin gripped his shoulder, turning him away from looking behind.

The Weasleys were going school shopping sometime in August, (Harry got the impression from the defensiveness of Ron's reply that they were waiting till Mr. Weasley got his next paycheck) so it would just be them.

Hermione, however, was waiting outside Flourish and Blotts.

Hermione ran up to him and gave Harry a bone-crushing hug, which Harry did his best to return properly despite being uncomfortable with hugs and being very aware of the sensation of her chest on his.

When the hug broke he withdraw the Prefect badge from his pocket and showed it to her.

She squealed, showed him her own Prefect badge, and said, "Why didn't you tell me in your letter?"

"Thought I'd show you."

Hermione said, "You'll have to obey the rules this year, to set a good example."

Harry said, "I'm pretty sure almost every rule I've broken you broke along with me, even if you did offer token objections."

"I..." She paused. "More than token."

He leaned in and whispered, "Whose idea was it to brew a potion that required stealing from a professor and shoving unconscious students in a closet?"

She turned red. "That was a mistake."

"Not to mention abuse of a time turner for the explicit purpose of obstructing justice. Honestly Hermione, I break rules, but you break laws, and now you're a prefect. What is Hogwarts coming to?"

She froze, Harry laughed, Hermione punched his arm, and Harry said, "I've been spending too much time at the _serious_ school of humor."

She rolled her eyes. "Hopefully you keep the _serious_ aspect of your education under control once we have prefect duties."

"I'm planning to be more Hermionish than Sirius, don't worry. When Professor Dumbledore asked if I was interested in being a prefect the certainty that I'd be doing it with you is half of why I said yes."

"He asked?"

"He didn't know if I had time, between Quidditch and my side project."

"Yes, occlumency. I've been wanting to ask you about that in person."

They chattered about it as they went through Flourish and Blotts to fill their booklists, Bill and Remus hanging just far enough back to give them the illusion of privacy. They went hunting for their own copies of the (rarer) books Dumbledore had loaned Harry, though Hermione already had her own copies of _Within the Cauldron's Bubble_ , _The Character of Magic_ and _Forming the Fundament_ , but not _Dark Arts and Pure Hearts_ or _Mind's Mortar_.

Between Flourish and Blotts, Obscurus Books and Secondhand Books they found everything but _Mind's Mortar_ , which the proprietor of Obscurus Books described as "rare, and questionably legal," which didn't make any sense to Harry.

They picked up parchment, potions ingredients, quills (Hermione agonized over some self-inking non-blotting quills, but decided they were too expensive) and got themselves measured for new robes at Madam Malkin's.

While getting fitted for new dress robes, which were once more on the list, he asked Bill to make sure Ron had decent dress robes, and Bill said he was already planning on it.

They stopped at Florean's for ice-cream, and Hermione checked her watch.

"Time?"

"My dad will pick me up outside the Leaky Cauldron."

"Then I guess I'll see you next at the train. Or maybe the Burrow a few days before."

Hermione said, "Other than that you'll stay inside the whole summer?"

"There's a roof deck. And a back garden, though it's quite small and they can't expand it without messing up the wards. But pretty much. Except I'm going shopping with Fleur later today."

"Fleur Delacour?" She sounded surprised and suspicious. "That's... unexpected. Harry you are rather famous, are sure she's not, you know, using you?"

"Huh?"

"We know from last year that dating you could get someone in the newspaper."

"Oh. Oh. No, relax. She just wants to thank me. You remember, from the second task. Besides, Fleur Delacour and Bill Weasley are not-dating. He's too much older than her. They're just taking meals together, attending concerts, touring museums, and, I assume, holding hands as they walk along the seaside at midnight while watching the stars. I haven't found out yet whether not-dating involves kissing."

Bill set down his spoon with a clank and cuffed Harry lightly on the back of his head.

"That's all right then," said Hermione.

She handed him a package in red paper. Rectangular, thicker at one end than the other. A book with heavy bindings. "I know it's not till Monday, but happy birthday Harry."

He gave her a quick hug across the table. They finished their ice-cream, went out through the Leaky Cauldron and stood by a curb, Hermione lecturing him about magical careers; in magical Britain, 30 hours a week was considered full-time, which was less than in the muggle world, she said, but that was because there was more of a subsistence aspect to wizardly existence.

A silver sedan pulled up and its boot popped. Hermione dropped her bags inside, and waved goodbye, the man in the driver's seat also waving.

Harry supposed that Mr. Granger's trip to Diagon Alley prior to second-year had been a bad experience.

The car zoomed off with Hermione, and Harry went immediately back to Diagon Alley to buy the package of self-inking, non-blotting quills Hermione had wanted. Her birthday was in September.

Bill checked his watch, declared they had twenty minutes before Fleur arrived, and Lupin led them to the oculist's office.

"We'll get you tested. Depending on the results, your eyes will be fixed or we'll get you new glasses."

Get his eyes fixed... Now that he thought of it, lots of muggles his age had glasses, but hardly any other students at Hogwarts did. It was pretty much just him and old people. And Rita Skeeter. "My father had glasses."

Lupin said, "And with luck, you will too."

Harry was about to ask what he meant by that, but the oculist approached them, and Harry was shaking her hand, then being asked if he might autograph two slips of paper for her daughters.

He did so, blushing and reluctant, and the oculist became all business. At her direction, he removed his glasses, which turned the inside of the store into a blurry mess, and he remained as still as possible while she cast several diagnostic spells on his eyes. Then she guided him into a viewer which somehow could show very close things (which were blurry) and things that were very far away (which were nice and clear.)

"Well?" said Lupin, when it was done.

"He's a Potter," said the oculist, and Lupin seemed inordinately pleased by that pronouncement.

Lupin said, "Your eyesight doesn't need fixing. It's better than perfect. You're far-sighted. It's a family trait of the Potter line. A pretty good advantage, though not nearly on the level of, say, the Black family's predilection for metamorphmagery. You see well at a distance, and your vision is quick. That's part of why you do so well at Quidditch. But as a result, you're near-sighted. Those muggle glasses mostly take care of it, but we can do better."

"I should 'ope so," said a familiar voice.

Harry put his glasses back on, and the silvery blob resolved into Fleur Delacour.

Fleur said, "Zey are 'orribly unstylish. Ze round lenses work with your face, but ze frames and 'andles are cheap, blocky plastic with no shaping."

"Nice to see you too, Fleur." He looked at the shorter version of Fleur holding hands with the big version. "And you too, Gabrielle."

"'Ello," said Gabrielle.

"Bonjour," said Harry, and then in badly accented French, "How are you doing today?"

Gabrielle responded in French that was mostly too quick for him to follow, but he understood it was a formulaic greeting, and all he had to do was say he was good as well, and then apologize and say that was all the French he knew.

It was all the French Sirius had taught him. He didn't even know the words really, just phrases. But Fleur and Gabrielle seemed pleased.

 _"Always impress the part-veela gals,"_ Sirius had said.

They had nearly the same conversation in Gabrielle's broken English.

Fortunately, trying on glasses did not require a great deal of vocabulary.

He tried on a sharp-edged rectangular pair, the lenses automatically adjusting to suit his sight. The Delacour girls shook their heads, so he put those back, and tried a more squarish pair of glasses. The objections were even fiercer, so he replaced it with a pair that was straight on top and curvy on the bottom. They shrugged at that, so he put it aside, starting the maybe pile.

Gabrielle picked out a round-framed pair, very much like his current glasses, except they were metal, not plastic, and the arms met the frames a little farther up. That pair got yeses from both Delacours, and a nod from Lupin and Bill, so it started the 'yes' pile.

After half an hour, it was whittled down to two round-lensed pairs. A frameless pair, and the pair Gabrielle had picked out, black wired with bits of green Lupin said the frameless wasn't so practical, so Harry chose Gabrielle's pick.

Lupin said to the oculist, "Two in this style. One allowable under standard Quidditch rules, one decidedly not. Deluxe package, what you might sell a flush Auror. Light adjusters, see-throughers, goggles, the works."

"That isn't cheap," said the oculist.

Lupin smiled. Sirius was paying, and Sirius was rich.

As Lupin talked to the oculist about price, date, and other details, Harry whispered to Fleur. "I think I owe you 250 galleons. I didn't deserve to win. Crouch was helping me. He gave me a little advice on the task, and he even helped me a little getting through the maze."

"Eh? So? Madam Maxine advised me, and Karkaroff advised Viktor. You did well. If I can not beat a fourth-year, that is my fault, I think."

"But-"

"No but. You are being stupid. Keep your money."

Lupin said, "They'll need a week for the deluxe, but the Quidditch-rules pair will be ready in three hours."

"Good," said Fleur. "We shall return back after shopping."

#

#

Harry collapsed on his favorite couch at Grimmauld Place. He was sure he'd been more tired in the past. He just couldn't remember when.

No, he could actually. After the whole mess with Quirrell and the stone. After they'd gone back in time to save Sirius and he'd fought off all those dementors. That might've been it.

He did, at least, have an expansive wardrobe, muggle and wizarding both, that was, Fleur assured him, as fashionable as could be managed without spending a lot more money or taking a trip to France. Not that he really cared. His new shoes were nice-Lupin was already making plans for how they ought to be enchanted-but the glasses were the best part.

It was slight, little more than the difference between clean glasses and dirty ones, but everything was sharper, colors more vivid.

At the moment, the backs of his eyelids were all he wanted to see.

#

#

Dumbledore, Bill, Remus, Sirius and Harry all wore party hats, sitting around a table with a birthday-cake-sized treacle tart with 15 lit candles stuck in.

Harry waved his hand at the candles, focusing on emitting magic and putting the candles out.

15 little fires vanished. Two or three could've been from the wind of his hand passing, but the rest were not. Wandless magic, but the sort any child could perform with enough tries.

It had taken Harry seven.

Sirius and Lupin cheered, Dumbledore blew a kazoo, and Bill clapped him on the back.

A rollicking little birthday party, even if the attendees were only those who already had access to Grimmauld Place.

Minus Snape, of course, thank Merlin.

"Presents!" barked Sirius, once everyone had eaten a piece of treacle tart.

From Sirius he got a walkman, though it was missing a lot of the essential pieces and had been shrunk.

"That cassette's got over 500 albums on it. Just name the one you want to listen to."

From Dumbledore, he got a small green book. _Antithesis of the Darkest Arts: Love and Humility in Magic._

Dumbledore said, "Given that you asked Horace about deific magic, I thought you might enjoy this."

From Bill, a gold coin necklace and a small booklet.

Bill said, "Classic Egyptian magic. You can store up to eleven and half days of sleep and good health in the coin, then use it when you need to. Read the manual."

From Lupin, a plan for how he ought to enchant his new shoes. Ward scheme and charm scheme both, leaving just enough wiggle room that he could be a little creative.

Then the gifts from those absent.

From Hagrid, a furry brown wallet with teeth.

From Ron, a very large box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans.

From the Weasley family, a hand-knitted jumper and two mince pies.

Harry had been expecting Hermione's gift to be a homework planner or some such thing, and it was some such thing, but it rather blew him away. _Revising Guide,_ the cover said. When he opened it, he saw Hermione's writing, listing all the spells they'd learned their first year, along with the theory of how they all worked, and references to related spells they'd learned in later years.

And much the same for first-year Potions, Herbology, Astronomy and History of Magic. Then the second year, much the same. The third year, there were, in addition to the other classes, sections on Arithmancy, Runes, Magical Creatures, Muggle studies, and even a short, sarcastic section on divination. Fourth-year, again, the key points of every class she'd taken, carefully outlined.

And through it all, in every year, there were notes of how each spell or concept related to the outlined OWL requirements. The book-sized study guide had to be the product of hundreds of hours of work. Thousands even.

"Bloody hell," said Sirius, who'd been reading it over Harry's shoulder.

Harry was sure she'd made it for herself, probably revising and updating it over the course of her whole Hogwarts career, but he still felt as if the quills he'd bought in preparation for her birthday didn't stand up as an even exchange.

The conversation turned to OWLs, and whether Harry wanted to be a professional Quidditch player (they seemed to take it as granted that he could if he wanted to, but Harry said he wasn't sure whether he liked the idea or not, which seemed to please them) and from there to news.

Rita Skeeter had published an article about the 'Unconvicted Prisoners of Azkaban,' and how they perhaps ought to be given trials.

Harry was pleased when he heard that, but frowned when he saw the others were frowning. Harry said, "Isn't that a good thing?"

"It's a good thing for me," said Sirius. "During the war, there was a lot of just rounding up anyone who seemed to be trying to kill Aurors. So maybe there are some other innocents in there too. But some genuine, hard-core Death Eaters might get out on insufficient evidence."

Dumbledore said, "In his present form, Voldemort with even a single servant is vastly more dangerous than Voldemort without even one."

"Oh," said Harry. He fidgeted. "I think maybe there's something I might need to tell you."

Dumbledore took a long look at Harry and said, "Bill, I trust you greatly, or you wouldn't be here. But I suspect this may be a conversation for me and Harry's guardians."

"I'll wait in the next room, then."

Dumbledore said, "Sirius, ensure that your house-elf does not eavesdrop."

Sirius did so, Dumbledore cast several privacy wards, and Harry explained about Rita Skeeter and how he and Hermione were blackmailing her, wishing he could disappear.

Sirius said, "I'm flattered Pronglet, but kidnapping and blackmail are not great ideas."

Dumbledore said, "I think that with competent legal defense you and Miss Granger would likely get off. She only caught a beetle, after all, and on discovering the beetle was a journalist, you asked a favor. Luckily for you, the blackmail laws in Wizarding Britain are disturbingly weak. Still, I ought to have a conversation with Miss Granger about what statements might be incriminating and how to avoid making them."

Lupin rubbed his temples.

Dumbledore said, "A re-examination of the prisoners of war should happen, but there is danger of the process being co-opted by those who should have little to do with it. Lucius Malfoy, for example. I don't demand that you do what I say, but in the future you might consult me before making political moves. At least until you understand a great deal more about wizarding politics and history."

Harry winced, and Bill was called back in.

They played Risk. Harry cheered up slightly until Dumbledore, complaining about the ethics of the game's goal, drove him from Africa, eliminated the last of his troops from South America, took his risks cards, and conquered the world.

Defeat was bitter.

#

#

"Ready?" said Bill.

"Ready," said Sirius, looking as if Christmas had come early.

Bill tapped the wall one last time with a golden mallet, and Harry felt the wards come off the portrait with a _tong_ like struck metal vibrating.

Sirius began casting, countering the sticking charm, and after five minutes of that, he canceled the silence spell, and Walburga Black's screams filled the hall.

Sirius pocketed his wand and lifted the portrait off the wall.

"Filth! Blood Traitor! Sin of my Flesh!"

Sirius said, "Ready for the grand tour?" He took her into the sitting room. "Here's the telly." It had become very large and flat under Sirius's ministrations, taking up most of its wall.

"Muggle abomination!"

Sirius took her through the house. "Here's the treadmill, I've got big plans for the treadmill."

"Muggle contraption, staining my house!"

"Here's Moony's 'that-time-of-the-month containment park' I'll be putting in more bushes soon."

"Beast! Werewolf in my house!"

"Yes, quite. Would you like to meet a Hippogriff? He lives in your room. I'm expecting Hagrid to take him away any day now, but he hasn't yet."

It continued, Sirius showing her all his renovations, and Walburga Black shrieking about them. The grand tour concluded on the roof deck, where Sirius tossed the portrait on the ground and squirted it with muggle lighter fluid.

A _Pop,_ and Kreacher appeared, standing between Sirius and the portrait.

"Master mustn't, filthy traitor Master. Give her to Kreacher, Kreacher will take care of her."

"Out of the way, Kreacher," said Sirius.

Kreacher crossed his arms, face set, as Sirius rolled his eyes at the elf. Harry knew he was about to phrase it as an order.

"Why not put her away?" Harry said. "Who knows, you might need to question her one day."

Sirius said, "I very much doubt it."

"And your relationship with Kreacher is toxic enough as it is."

"I don't care what the elf thinks."

"You should. Remember how Dobby betrayed the Malfoys?" He'd told Sirius the story.

Sirius's jaw clenched. Kreacher looked at Harry with surprising gratitude.

Lupin said, "I was looking forward to burning her, but Harry's right. It's not prudent."

Sirius sighed. "I'll lock her in a cabinet. Kreacher, I order you to leave her alone. You can't take her out and you can't visit her and you can't tell anyone where she is. Just leave it alone."

"Unworthy Master is ungrateful to his mother. Unworthy Master keeps her from his servants."

Harry said, "Kreacher, don't push it."

The elf glared at him but vanished with a pop.

#

#

Godric's Hollow was a pleasant little town. Bringing Bill and Tonks in addition to Lupin felt like overkill to Harry, but it hadn't been his choice.

He cast a last uncertain glance at the monument-he wasn't sure whether he liked it or not, but it wasn't for him, was it-and continued on to Potter Cottage.

The hedge was trimmed, the yard was well-kept, and a woman in red livery stood just inside the gate.

"Welcome to Potter Cottage, the site of the Boy-Who-Lived's victory over You-Know-Who on October 31st, 19-" She got a better look at Harry and stopped. "Mr. Potter," she squeaked, "if I'd known you were coming, I would've arranged for a private tour."

"The public tour will be fine," said Harry.

But in fact, they were the only ones there.

Through the entryway, into a sitting room.

"This is where James Potter, well..." the guide trailed off. Harry had the feeling she was cutting off her usual spiel for the sake of present company.

Harry said, "I don't see any damage to the room." Based on the memories he'd seen, he would've expected a fight.

"His wand was in the other room when You-Know-Who entered. Lily Potter had left hers downstairs as well."

Harry's hand wandered over the handle of his own wand.

"In here we see the kitchen. If you look at the stove, you'll notice it has gas burners-Lily Potter's muggle influence. Because they had no house-elf..."

Harry largely tuned the guide out. He wanted to listen, but what he was seeing and what he was feeling took up all his attention.

A lot of the rooms felt familiar, though whether that was real or imagined he couldn't say.

The nursery was the most extreme. Half of it was untouched, pristine, the crib against the wall with blankets still in, a toy chest in the corner. And half of it was destroyed completely, missing wall and ceiling.

Harry wondered what spell was used to keep the wind and rain out, and why, if they had that spell, wizards bothered with houses at all.

"Here is where Lily Potter, well..."

Harry took a deep breath.

#

#

The morning before the start of his four-day visit with the Weasleys, after which he'd go to Hogwarts, Lupin and Bill took him to Gringotts to look at the Potter family's artifacts vault.

Harry stood in it with Lupin and a goblin, looking at the manifest, thankful for the fact that it was organized alphabetically. "First, I definitely want the pensieve."

Lupin said, "If I recall, there's a briefcase has about ten times the volume of a school trunk and a default weight of fifteen pounds. We'll put everything you want in it."

Harry nodded, looking for it, then spotted the portrait gallery and hurried to it.

A number of portraits greeted him, asking who he was.

Harry said, "Are my parents here?"

Lupin said, "Sorry. People don't generally get portraits made until later in life. But those are your grandparents. Fleamont and Euphemia Potter." Lupin pointed to two portraits. The woman had gray hair and deep laugh lines. The man had two scars on his face. One down his left cheek, one taking a diagonal just above his right eye. They woke up as Lupin said their names.

"Fleamont?" said Harry.

The portrait of Fleamont said, "My father gave me that name to make me tough. It worked."

Lupin leaned over and whispered to Harry, "Excellent duelist, joined the British Volunteers to fight in Grindelwald's war before Britain officially entered, and attained the rank of major."

"Major Fleamont?" said Harry.

"You're lucky I'm a portrait, descendant, or I'd be giving you lessons on respecting your ancestors."

Euphemia said, "Which descendant are you?"

"I'm Harry Potter. Your grandson. James' son."

"And how is James? We must've been in this vault for some time if you're already so grown up. Why is that?"

Harry exchanged glances with Lupin. "I assume you've heard of Voldemort?"

Ten minutes later, both portraits were crying (Harry was surprised to see actual tears leaking through the paint) and Harry had decided to take his grandparents to Hogwarts.

When their tears stopped, Fleamont and Euphemia began calling out recommendations for what he might take, most focused on safety.

"My old wand holster. The two-inch tube holds a wand up to 15 inches long, and you can stick and strap the holster wherever you like."

"The wristwatch over there is actually a rennervater. Wakes you up if you're stunned. And the ring next to it changes temperature when someone points a wand at you. You might as well put them both on."

Harry did, pleased that neither was ostentatious. The ring was a filigree iron band, and the rennervating wristwatch had a simple black leather band.

"The monocle shows you the original form of objects that have been transfigured."

"Dorea's old rune and ward set is right over there, by the guardian hawk statue."

Lupin said, "Wands are over here." He gestured to a whole rack. "They're labeled by owner. I'd start with your parent's first."

"You think I should have a spare wand?" said Harry.

"Considering all the trouble you get up to, yes."

Harry left for the Weasley's an hour later, carrying a suitcase, wand holster strapped to his left forearm, another one attached to his right shin, just above the ankle.

#

#

Harry stepped onto Platform nine and three quarters and used a sticking charm to attach his prefect badge to his jacket, glorying in the fact that he could use magic again.

But for the first time, he felt a little reluctant about leaving for Hogwarts. He missed his friends, he missed the school, he missed performing magic, he missed Quidditch, he missed all sorts of things, but he knew he'd miss Sirius and Lupin as well. Lazy mornings, board games after dinner, the two tutoring him on this or that-Lupin in a more organized manner. Sirius's devil-may-care attitude even as he chafed at the necessity to stay holed up in Grimmauld Place, and the renovations that Harry suspected would never completely end so long as Sirius was confined to the house.

He shrugged and kept an eye out for Hermione as he and Ron boarded the train.

Harry said, "I'm heading to the Prefect carriage."

Ron, who'd taken Harry being the prefect better than Harry'd expected (though he did grimace when he looked at the badge) waved goodbye and went off to find Neville.

The prefect carriage was at the front of the train. Harry opened the door and saw the back of a head of bushy brown hair

Hermione turned, smiled, Harry braced himself for a hug, and was surprised when it didn't come.

Malfoy's, "Still alive, Potter? Pity," made clear why.

"Hey Draco, how's your summer been? Mine was pretty good, except I hardly got to fly at all."

"It... what?"

"Congratulations on being made a prefect. I thought it would be Zabini, honestly, but I guess you outdid him on the exams. Well done." He looked around the compartment. Daphne Greengrass was the other Slytherin fifth-year prefect. "Too bad Pansy isn't your partner, that'd be pretty cool, doing rounds with your girlfriend."

"Pansy is not my girlfriend," said Draco Malfoy, pink-cheeked.

"But you're so cute together," said Harry.

Daphne Greengrass began making sounds like a dying squirrel. Harry thought she was trying not to laugh.

Draco said, "And you, dating Granger." He seemed to be struggling to figure out how to make that an insult; Harry had never seen Draco Malfoy struggle to make something an insult before. But confusion was working wonders, just as Sirius and Lupin had said.

"That's a common misunderstanding. Hermione and I aren't actually dating." Harry shifted, looking uncomfortable, and confided, just loudly enough for everyone to hear, "I didn't do well with the whole romance thing last year, and, seeing how sweet you and Pansy are together, I thought you might give me some advice."

"Pansy and I aren't... what kind of advice?"

"Dating to me seemed very vague. I don't get the rules for how it works, but from what I understand, purebloods have it much more formalized. If you might describe how it works..."

Draco drew himself up. Discoursing on pureblood customs was familiar ground. "You have to be very respectful. You clasp your hands behind your back, like so," Draco demonstrated, "incline your head slightly, and ask what she thinks of the gardens. If she mentions roses-"

Cedric Diggory, pink-faced from amusement and wearing the Head Boy badge, said, "Fascinating as this is, we have business to discuss, now that everyone's here."

Draco sneered at Diggory but fell silent. Harry looked around the Prefect's Carriage.

It was quite a bit bigger than a standard carriage, given it had to hold 24 some students at a time, and set up for meetings.

Diggory was the Head Boy, and a seventh-year Ravenclaw named Alexis Sherrly introduced herself as Head Girl.

Harry nodded to the other fifth-year prefects: Ernie MacMillan, Hanna Abbot, Anthony Goldstein, and Padma Patil, and listened as Cedric and Alexis went over their duties.

It wasn't much. Patrol when you were supposed to. Turn a blind eye when you thought you should, don't when you didn't. Never ever ever use your wand to discipline a student. Don't abuse your powers to take points from students of your own house, and follow your Head of House's guidelines for detentions. Recognize the signs of abuse. Bullying, and how to deal with it.

Harry took a few notes, Hermione took many, and two hours into the journey, they were finally free.

:::

Given that I've very little experience with French accents, I feel uncomfortable writing Fleur's. Later, she won't have an accent worth writing. She'll be spending some of the time she spent worrying about Voldemort and whatnot on English tutoring.

Monstrosity, by JLL, available on Amazon, in the books department. blahblahblah

This is not Gabrielle/Harry.

Prefects are chosen by the Head of House and the Headmaster, and presumably their selection has a political component. Snape and Dumbledore are in different political situations this year than in canon. Thus, Greengrass over Pansy.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Welcoming

Prefect duties discharged, Harry took a seat next to Ron in the train carriage the red-head had claimed, Hermione settling on his other side.

Across from them sat Neville Longbottom and a blonde Ravenclaw Harry didn't know. She had her wand behind her ear, which was certainly odd, but struck Harry as a vastly better idea than keeping it in a bookbag like some students did, so long as the wand stayed put. She was reading a magazine upside down, which Harry thought was also odd, but impressive. He'd been sufficiently bored a few times over the summer to attempt reading books held upside down. He'd found it tedious and time-consuming, and had kept having to turn the books right-side-up to make out difficult words.

He cocked his head to read the upside-down headlines, and pulse thudded in his ears when he deciphered the headline: _**Sirius Black: Villain or Victim?**_

Harry said, "Could I see your magazine?"

The girl smiled in the general direction of his left shoulder and handed him the magazine. Harry blinked at the news that Sirius was a retired rock-star named Stubby Boardman, and thought the bit about Fudge running a conspiracy against the goblins to be plausible except for the assumption that he was competent enough to do so.

Also, he couldn't imagine Fudge having goblins cooked in pies.

Ron, who'd looked at the magazine over Harry's shoulder, called the magazine barmy, then called the girl barmy when she called him narrow-minded. Hermione told Ron not to be rude, then she told the girl all about how she shouldn't believe such rubbish, then seemed at a loss when the girl kept believing it anyway.

Harry thought she was barmy too but didn't see any need to be rude about it.

"Harry Potter," said Harry, shaking extending his hand.

"Luna Lovegood," she said, shaking it.

"Loony Lovegood more like," muttered Ron, loudly enough that Harry guessed Luna had heard.

"Oh hush," said Hermione.

Luna said, in a detached, objective sort of manner, "Your sister is much nicer than you, and being nice isn't her greatest strength, really."

Before it could devolve into an argument, Harry said, "Hermione! Thanks so much for your birthday present. It's great." He pulled the prep-book from his bag and opened to the first spells page.

Hermione said, "I did make it for your birthday, that's why I went to the trouble of compiling it all, but now that I have..."

"You want to make duplicates?"

"I thought it might help Ron."

"Definitely. It'd be weird if we both had the prep-book and Ron didn't. And I was thinking. You should make a lot of duplicates, and then charm them against duplication, and sell them. Maybe a galleon each."

"I couldn't possibly. I'm just a student. It would be very presumptuous of me." She looked mortified, thinking about it.

"You're the best student in our year. When people find out about the prep-book, they're going to want a copy. Giving them to me and Ron and maybe Neville and Ginny or whoever else you call a friend is one thing. Giving them out to people who you hardly know or don't know at all? Charge them a galleon."

"A galleon would be too much even if I were selling, which I wouldn't." said Hermione

"A few sickles then. Wouldn't you like to have some pocket money that doesn't come from your parents? Burden them a little less?"

Hermione glared. "That's a low blow Harry. Besides, my parents are dentists and I'm an only child. Even with the exchange rate we're hardly poor."

Harry's eyes flicked over to Ron, Hermione caught his meaning, and they both breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the red-head, eating a chocolate frog and talking to Neville, had missed the exchange.

Harry said, "Sorry. That probably wasn't the best tact. It'd be a learning opportunity though, wouldn't it? You wrote that you're interested by the idea of being a businesswoman. You might learn a lot trying it out on this sort of small scale."

Hermione bit her lip, frowning the frown that meant she was thinking it over, and Harry dropped the issue.

Harry took out three buttons, two pebbles, a metal hair-clip and matchstick, and started running through first-year charms and transfiguration spells.

They were all laughably easy from the perspective of a fifth-year, but he'd forgotten the wand movements and incantations for a few he hadn't much occasion to use since learning. Though now that he thought of it, the softening charm had had hardly any practical use for him when he couldn't cast it on anything bigger than his fist, but these days he could probably get a lot more use out of it.

Ron looked over as Harry floated all three pebbles at once (which was quite a lot harder than floating a single stone would've been), stared at the review book, and said, "You're already studying?"

Harry shrugged. "It's over two months since I've done any magic. I've been missing it."

#

#

The staff table was slightly larger than in years past. In addition to the typical staff, there was Mad-Eye Moody (the real one), still thin and pale from his ordeal, Horace Slughorn, and five faces he didn't recognize, none looking much older than Percy Weasley.

He turned his attention from them to the milling first-years waiting to be sorted, Professor McGonagall standing by the hat, ramrod straight, face as hard as stone, her version of trying to give off a relaxed, reassuring vibe.

"Abercrombie, Euan," she called.

The frightened little boy sat on a chair, the overlarge sorting hat was placed upon his head, barely held up by his ears, and a moment later the hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

The Gryffindor table cheered. The boy jogged over. Harry shook the boys hand, introducing himself as "Harry Potter, fifth-year prefect," and Hermione introduced herself a moment later.

He nodded, overawed, and Harry hoped he'd like the kid-he'd be looking after him for the next three years, after all.

He sat the boy on one side of him, he and Hermione having already taken places amid the empty portion, planning to sit among the firsties.

The next Gryffindor was Ben Betlin, followed by "Crane, Artemis." The little girl strode confidently forward, tugged the hat onto her head a little tighter than she should've, and the hat cogitated a little longer than it had for most before declaring her a member of Harry's house.

The sorting continued. Delfought, Demeter going to HUFFLEPUFF!

"Morningsdotter, Athena," went to Ravenclaw. The hat spent longer on "Paxlator, Hekate," than anyone else. Finally, it said, "SLYTHERIN!" and little Hekate swept the hat off her head and bowed low to the crowd before returning it to Professor McGonagall and making for the Slytherin table.

Harry laughed and clapped for her, wishing the girl with the audacity for that had been sorted into his house, though presumably the sorting hat knew what it was up to.

To cap it off, Zeller, Rose, went to Hufflepuff, Dumbledore welcomed everyone, and the food appeared.

Harry counted the students. Sixteen first-year Gryffindors. Nine boys and seven girls.

His own year-mates numbered only nine. And come to think of it, the years above and below all had more, though none of them by so much.

He cast a glance at Hermione. "Birthrates fell during the war, and then a baby boom after?"

She nodded fractionally. "Plus, with more and more muggles there's more and more muggle-borns. And magical immigration is approaching pre-war levels, though blood-purism, which is stronger in Britain than in many other..."

Hermione continued, seguing into the still weak but slowly recovering tourism industry.

Harry gave half an ear over to listening, focusing more on eating and on the first-years. He was only four years older, but they seemed very young to him.

He turned to the boy closest to him, small and dark-haired. "You're Ben, right?"

"Yes."

Harry wasn't sure what else to say; asking muggle-borns to raise their hands might not come off well.

Hermione spoke loudly enough to be heard by the first-years. "I was ever so excited when I was sorted. I'm muggle-born, you see, so I'd never seen so much magic before."

That got them discoursing about their families, and Harry kept track. He'd been bewildered by the wizarding world the first few months, depending on Ron to explain everything, which probably hadn't been the best.

Five purebloods, and six half-bloods. Approximately. Separating the purebloods from the halfbloods took a bit of guessing. Five muggle-borns, which seemed like a lot.

Ben said, "I won't be behind, will I? Being muggle-born and all."

Hermione said, "Have you read your textbooks?"

"I've looked over them quite a lot. I wouldn't say I've _read_ them."

"That's where you should start," said Hermione. "If you want to do well."

Harry opened his mouth to say that he was a prefect now and he hadn't _read_ his textbooks before his first year either. But he wished his eleven-year-old self had read them, it would've made the year easier, so he said, "Hermione's right. She's the biggest bookworm in my year and also the best student. That isn't a coincidence. You don't have to take it as far as she does, but if you don't like reading or you're not good at it, you should fix that."

Artemis said, "I like reading fine. But novels mostly. The textbooks..."

"The textbooks are very interesting, really, if you think about them properly," said Hermione.

Harry said, "The textbooks can be dry. Thinking helps. You might enjoy other books from the library on the same subjects. We'll show you the library tomorrow."

Anne Innsy said, "Sir."

"Call me Harry."

"Harry, where's the loo?"

The nearest loos were just outside the Great Hall, normally, but Hogwarts did move them from time to time and it was ridiculously easy to get lost in the castle, so Harry said, "I'll show you."

Anne and Jim followed him out of the Great Hall, and the loos were nearly where they were supposed to be.

Jim finished first.

Harry led them back and had just retaken his seat when one of the firstie boys said, "Where's the loo?"

Harry grimaced, Hermione said, "I'll take care of it this time," and Harry took the chance to eat. The food at Grimmauld Place had been good, but what the Hogwarts house-elves produced was a step or two up. Hermione said it was like eating at a 15 pound a plate restaurant every meal. Not that Harry had ever been in such a place.

Dumbledore rose and the hall fell silent. His eyes twinkled as he took in the students, and embarked on the longest speech Harry had ever heard the headmaster give. "This is an unusual year at Hogwarts. A year of progress and change. The funds from last year's Tri-Wizard tournament, along with a most generous donation from Lucius Malfoy and the entire Malfoy family, have enabled us to expand our programs. It's my privilege to introduce Mr. Jack Morfing, Assistant Professor of Transfiguration. Miss Elizabeth Mendez, Assistant Professor of Charms, Mr. Kurt Moon, Assistant Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Miss Jennette Nearly, Assistant Professor of Potions, and Miss Katherine Wallygomit, Assistant Professor of Herbology."

The young people at the staff table rose as Dumbledore called their names. As they and the applause ended, Dumbledore continued, explaining that the various Assistant Professors would be occupied mainly with the younger years, allowing all students to receive more one-on-one attention, and Harry commented to Hermione that he wouldn't mind if Miss Jennette Nearly took over their OWL potions class, fully qualified or not.

Dumbledore said, "In addition to these additions to our pure academics, it is my pleasure and honor to introduce Mr. Horace Slughorn, former Hogwarts Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin House, now Hogwarts Director of Extra-Curriculars. Mr. Slughorn, if you would."

Slughorn rose, Dumbledore clapped, and the students followed his lead in polite applause.

Slughorn spoke as the tepid applause trailed off. "It's wonderful to be back here in Hogwarts, where I resided for so many long years. I can only hope that I can give back as much as I've been given. First, I'd like to introduce Miss Penelope Clearwater, Assistant Director of Extra-Curriculars."

A pretty, dark-haired woman rose and bobbed her head. There was a scattering of applause, she sat, and Slughorn continued. "We'll have a variety of evening and weekend workshops. Basic healing. Housekeeping and magical cooking. Family life. Personal finances. Wards. Spell creation. Algebra, calculus and non-euclidean geometry. Ballroom dancing, art, wandmusique, and literature. Those who complete a workshop series will receive the relevant certificate of completion."

Hermione was hanging on his every word, and was hurriedly scribbling in a little notebook.

Slughorn said, "But it won't all be educational. We'll have competitions. Chess, entertainments, golem wars, the whole kaboodle. And best of all, there will be three dances."

The Hall broke into a chatter even larger than that at the previous year's Yule Ball announcement.

"Fourth-year and up, younger years by invite only. A harvest masquerade on October 21st, a Yule Ball, this time occurring before the Holiday break, and the spring dance."

The hall grew louder, most of the girls looking as if they'd never heard better news, most of the boys looking horribly nervous.

Hermione sniffed, "Everyone's acting as if that's the most important part."

Harry said, "You enjoyed it last year."

"Yes, but it's not important. And don't tell me you're happy about this."

"Not really, but I made such a hash of it last year that I like the idea of a do-over. I didn't learn to dance, I was a horrible date, and I waited too long on asking. Speaking of which." He leaned close and lowered his voice. "Would you like to go to the Harvest Masquerade with me?"

Hermione gaped, and Harry raised an eyebrow, trying to appear calm, though his heart was pounding and he felt oddly pinched. He couldn't believe he'd actually said it. From the way she was staring, she couldn't either.

Harry said, "Think about it."

Dumbledore spoke. "Thank you, Director Horace Slughorn."

As Dumbledore gave his usual spiel on school rules, Harry kept glancing at Hermione, who looked surprised and bewildered, which nearly made up for how dreadfully nervous he was.

They were dismissed to bed, and Harry and Hermione led the first-years off, taking, as Cedric had said, the long way around so they could see a bit more of the castle, and to tire them out so they wouldn't be up all night talking about the sorting.

Hermione treated it as a tour, discoursing on whatever they passed-historical notes, classrooms, various enchantments, where passages went. Harry hung at the back, pointing out the loos and gently pushing ahead students who fell behind.

The students, even the purebloods, ooed and ahhed when a staircase switched to a different hall. Artemis said, "Isn't that dangerous?"

Harry said, "Falling off is not lethal, but the experience is is unpleasant. For more information, contact Seamus Finnegan."

They reached the portrait of the Fat Lady and Hermione said, "Mimbulus Mimbletonia."

The students clambered through the portrait hole into a mostly empty common room, and Harry led their boys to their dorm as Hermione led the girls to theirs.

"Breakfast will be served from 6:30 to 9. The first few times you go through Hogwarts by yourself, you will get lost, so we will proceed down together. We'll gather in the common room at 7:15," (7:30 in reality, but they didn't need to know that) "and from there proceed to breakfast. The loo is through there." He pointed. "Any questions?"

Euan said, "Did you really defeat a dragon?"

"No, I just survived stealing from one. Anything else?" After a moment of silence, Harry said, "Good night, and welcome to Gryffindor."

He closed the door, and caught Hermione's eye, standing on the opposite hall.

The went down their respective stairs, meeting in the common room, and Hermione dragged him off to a private nook. She whispered, "You asked me to the Masquerade."

"Yeah. So. Do you wanna go?"

"Why did you ask me?"

"So you'd go with me, hopefully. Will you?"

She half glared. "I'm thinking about it."

Hermione went up the stairs to the girls' dorm, looking back at him several times, and Harry let out a breath. He hadn't said quite what he was supposed to, but his voice hadn't cracked and he hadn't stuttered or said uh, er or um. A massive improvement on how he'd invited Cho last year.

He checked to see no one was looking or in hearing distance, withdrew a mirror from his pocket and said, "Padfoot."

After a moment, Harry's reflected face was replaced by the cheerful visage of Sirius Black. They'd tried it out a couple times before, but Harry was relieved to see that it worked even through the Hogwarts wards.

Harry said, "You know how you said I should ask Hermione out as soon as they announced the first Hogsmeade weekend?"

Sirius's eyes narrowed. "You did it already?"

"They announced a dance for October, a masquerade, so I asked her. She said she'd think about it."

Sirius nodded approvingly. "Quick work. Well done. Thinking about it though... that's usually prologue to a no. Not always. Don't push, but be nice. Remember, if she asks you why, none of that malarking around with 'who else would I go with,' or 'we should go together because we're friends.' You fancy her and you want to see where it goes. Got it?"

"Got it."

#

#

Harry woke early, sat on the edge of his bed, meditated for twenty minutes, then changed clothes and went for a very short run-just up and down a long flight of stair for ten minutes.

He returned to his dorm, performed a few hygiene charms to clean off the sweat he'd worked up, and used the Levitation Spell to get his school robes on, which took a few minutes, then slipped inside the firsties' room.

He rousted them.

 _"Rictusempra, rictusempra, rictusempra, rictusempra."_

The room filled with shrieks as the tickling charm struck the students, and Harry cast quickly, aiming to get all nine boys before they'd properly woken.

 _"Rictusempra, rictusempra, rictusempra, rictusempra."_

Only Ben avoided it, rolling off the side of his bed to dodge, and Harry said, "Well done Ben. One point to Gryffindor. Now get ready, get dressed, we're going to breakfast."

Twenty-five minutes later all the first-years had gathered in the common room.

Harry said, "Listen up. You're Gryffindors now. Gryffindor is the house of the brave, but that doesn't mean it should be the house of the reckless or hot-headed. Sometimes the bravest choice is to swallow your pride and ask for help. Sometimes it's to apologize. Sometimes it's to buckle down and learn what you're afraid you can't. Sometimes it's to be kind to those who are mean to you. One thing that definitely isn't brave is breaking the rules for no reason. If you do break the rules, it should be for a good reason and you should have thought about it."

"Harry!" said Hermione.

"What? It's true."

Hermione shook her head and lectured the kids on the rules, which was why they'd gathered early in the first place. Curfew, library books, prohibited items, and the Weasley twins. They repeated the password several times, promised not to write it down or tell it to anyone who wasn't in Gryffindor, and Harry and Hermione lead them to breakfast.

#

#

When they'd at last handed off the firsties to Professor McGonagall for orientation, Harry let his head hit the dining table. "Looking after them is twice as fun as I expected and ten times as exhausting."

Hermione gave his hand a squeeze. "Makes me empathize with the teachers a little." Then she looked at their hands, turned slightly red, and tore her hand away. She said, "We won't need to spend as much time with them as the year goes on. We'll eat lunch with our yearmates."

"Good. We're doing a lot more than I remember Percy doing. Who was the girls' Prefect anyway?"

Hermione had to think. "Sandra Brownboar. She did her rounds, but that was it. Even the girls saw more of Percy than of her. Percy wasn't bad, but let's be better prefects than either of them. Do you want me to look over your summer homework?"

"Remus already did. He made me re-write a couple essays."

Hermione put on a pleading expression and Harry rolled his eyes. "You enjoy correcting my homework, don't you? It gives you some weird pleasure. Alright. I promise you'll be proud. I'll even look over your homework and marvel at its brilliance. Hey, Ron."

The red-head, sitting several seats down, next to Neville, said, "Swhat? M e-eing."

"Chew before responding," said Harry. "Let's check each others' homework this afternoon."

Ron swallowed. "I haven't finished mine."

Hermione said, "Ronald Weasley, you had all summer."

"Classes don't start till Monday. Plenty of time."

Hermione said, "How much have you done? There was more than usual, I guess since it's our OWL year. It took me at least forty hours, all told."

Ron looked quite nervous, but said he'd done most of it.

Harry said, "I reckon it took me over twenty hours. I'm sure I didn't revise or research as much as Hermione."

Ron said, "Right, Hermione, let me look at yours."

"That's cheating," said Hermione.

"I won't copy, I just want to see what you wrote."

"And paraphrase the main ideas, I'm sure. That's still cheating."

As they argued, a brown owl landed on the table. Harry untied the little note.

 _Harry, see me._

 _-Dumbledore._

#

#

Harry sucked on the sherbet lemon, wondering why Dumbledore liked them so much.

Dumbledore handed him a silver ring inset with a small black pearl. "This prevents you from being spatially relocated without your consent. In order to use a floo, a portkey, or be apparated, you'll have to allow it. The ring is also a portkey with three locations."

Harry slipped the ring on his middle finger, next to the ring that changed temperature when someone pointed a wand at him. A tendril of of awareness crept up against the edges of his mind, not invading, just touching, reminding him of the toaster at Grimmauld Place.

Harry said, "The gates of Hogwarts, the stoop of Grimmauld Place, and, what's this third location? Beneath an oak tree?"

Dumbledore said, "A randomly chosen spot in the Welsh countryside. A place with no connection to you or me or anyone but an arthritic muggle shepherd named Steve."

Dumbledore handed Harry an armband. At a nod from the Professor, he put it on, and it sunk into his skin, disappearing entirely.

"If someone attempts to take your blood against your will, they'll get fake blood instead. If added to the potion Voldemort was using, the potion will burst into flame when Voldemort is placed within the cauldron."

Placed within the cauldron? It was nice to know that if Voldemort captured him the resurrection ritual probably wouldn't work, but preventing himself from being captured in the first place was definitely the preferred plan. "Do you really think he'll reuse the same plot?"

"It's possible. I've yet to find his mother's body, and I'm unsure whether I ever will. We would be very foolish indeed if he made a second attempt at the same ritual and we were unprepared for it. The best preparation, however, is for you to become someone he cannot capture. Have you read all the books I recommended?"

"Yes." With a thud, he set a canvas bag of books on Dumbledore's desk. "I've gotten my own copy of all the ones I borrowed."

"Excellent. You'll have to meet with Professor Snape once a week for occlumency practice, but I'd rather it were not known that such is taking place. I trust you to arrange the detentions responsibly."

Harry contemplated the multitude of ways he could get a detention from Professor Snape. "I'll have fun with that."

"I hope you plan to attend the extra-curriculars."

Most of them sounded good, but it wasn't as if he wasn't going to be busy enough already. "Some of them. The ones on magic."

Dumbledore said, "All of them. Especially the ones that aren't on magic."

Harry frowned. Art and music sounded nice, but they wouldn't keep him alive if the year was like any other.

"You've read the book on deific magic I gave you?"

Harry thought of everything it had to say on mental states and emotional depth. "I'll do the literature class at least."

"Excellent. As to your prefect duties, I assure you there are many ways to use the time spent on your rounds productively. Especially with the assistance of a map.

"As for that. It seems that in the 1300s and 1400s, an extensive and ingenious series of tracking wards was laid upon the castle, taking over a century to be completed, and were subsequently improved in later centuries. In the 1800s, Headmaster July Cloud hid the wards as she did not trust her successor, Mr. Nigellus Black, to use them properly, and they remained unknown ever since. The Marauders co-opted them, though they did not understand what they had done and never worked out why their map worked so much better than expected."

Dumbledore gestured to a cabinet. "I've made my own copy, with certain modifications. Rather than intruding upon the privacy of students and staff by watching it, I've set up alerts. It alerts me if someone is in the castle who isn't supposed to be here, if people disappear, if people spend substantial time in certain places-Myrtle's bathroom, for example-if someone doesn't move for a long time, et cetera.

"As for your map." Dumbledore set the old parchment on his desk. "Normally, a student would have no business with such a device. But you've ended up in life-threatening situations on a yearly basis, so I'm making an exception. I expect you to use it responsibly. I've added several secret passages, but you'll have to find secret rooms on your own. Once you do, they'll appear on the map."

Harry said, "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good," tapped it with his wand, and nothing happened.

"Additional security precautions. If you'd place your hand on the parchment..." Harry did so, and Dumbledore moved his wand over the hand in loops and squiggles. Harry tried to feel what he was doing, but it was horribly complex.

After a full minute, Dumbledore said, "It's keyed to you. You'll have to bring in Miss Granger and Mr. Weasley if you want them to be able to use it."

That was a pain, but he should probably do it.

"Now, Harry, these dreams you're having have made me quite curious about this odd connection you have with Voldemort. Do you have any speculations?"

He'd spoken to Remus and Sirius on the subject, and skimmed over a number of books they'd recommended. "I assume whatever happened on Halloween all those years ago created a liefnote or even some sort of strange soul bond, though the idea of being soul bonded to Voldemort..." He let the idea hang.

"A superposition would also explain the symptoms, though some awkwardly. I would be reluctant to investigate if Voldemort were embodied, as the strength of the connection seems to vary with both his power and his proximity, but he is wounded, incorporeal, and far away, so, with your consent, I'll risk it."

Harry nodded, and Dumbledore stepped forward, the tip of his ornate wand drawing shapes in the air millimeters over Harry's scar. He recognized a few cursebreaking diagnostics, but none of the other spells, and before long he closed his eyes, preferring darkness to the close view of Dumbledore's beard.

The tip of the wand touched his scar. It was very cool, right at the edge of unpleasantness, like an ice-cube felt through a towel.

The angle of the wand changed, and sensation transformed.

"Does that hurt?"

"It feels yellow."

"Focus on your occlumency, not to block any effects, but to suss them out."

More scraping of Dumbledore's wand over Harry's scar. A strange heat and pressure pushing into his head.

"Anything?"

Harry said, "I'm more irritated than I should be." His nails were digging into his palm.

The pressure receded. Harry opened his eyes as he heard Dumbledore step back.

Harry said, "Suss anything out?"

"I have more questions. There's no rush; I'll ask them once Severus is satisfied with your occlumency."

Harry waited for an explanation, and Dumbledore said, "You're free to go."

:::

Common fantasy tropes imply that 'naive' is synonymous with 'good.' I think this is stupid. I hope to create a Harry who is realistic, effective, self-aware, decisive in the face of the dreadful algebra of necessity, and unambiguously good.

My plan is for Harry and Hermione to date for a while and then break up. But, y'know, JK Rowling had a plan for Ron and Hermione to get together, and for Harry and Ginny to get together, and then she wrote the story and it seemed to many like Harry and Hermione were a perfect fit.

I think going ahead with her original plan was a mistake, and I promise not to make it too. If the break up doesn't feel right, I won't make it happen, plot be damned. You're in as much suspense as I am.


	7. Chapter 7

It wasn't till their first time doing rounds, by themselves in the dimly lit castle at night, that Harry and Hermione really got to talk.

"So your summer was good?" said Hermione.

"Best ever." He checked the map to be sure no one was near and said, "With Padfoot and Remus, they're not my parents, but Uncles, maybe? The way Uncles are supposed to be. Spending six weeks with them, it's a lot of different from six weeks with the Dursleys. And I had a birthday party, sort of."

"You didn't invite me?"

"We're under Fidelius, so we couldn't bring people who didn't already know the secret, and if we'd had it anywhere else Padfoot couldn't have come, so it was just me, Padfoot, Remus, Bill Weasley-he's been breaking curses at the place we've been staying-and Dumbledore."

"Professor Dumbledore was at your birthday party?"

"Even got me a gift. He knew my parents, and he's my magical guardian till I come of age or Padfoot is exonerated, so to me..." Dumbledore was a lot like a grandfather, probably, though not that close. And he didn't think grandfathers usually keep so many secrets, but Dumbledore did always say he'd tell him when he was older, which Harry knew from the telly was a grandfatherly thing to say. "You've got a grandfather, right?"

"Two."

"I've got a talking portrait of my grandfather on my dad's side now, got it this summer, I'm not sure where to hang them, so they're still in my trunk, I'll show you sometime, sorry, I'm rambling. How was your summer? You went to Europe, didn't you?"

"Barcelona. It, the beaches, look, Harry. About the dance. Did you mean we'd go as friends, or...?"

"I fancy you a bit and I'd like to see where it goes."

"Oh." Her voice squeaked and she was quite red. "But I have someone I like."

His stomach plummeted. "Krum?"

"Yes, I suppose, I do like him, but I decided I'm not interested in a long-distance relationship. Not while I'm still at school anyway." She took a deep breath and said, "You have to promise not to tell."

"I promise."

"I like Ron," said Hermione, very quickly.

"Our Ron? Ronald Weasley? The chap you're always getting into fights with?"

"It's unresolved sexual tension," she said.

"Oh. Is that right? Well." He didn't want to be there, standing in front of her, standing near her, alone at night in a charming castle light by magical candle-light. And they didn't really _need_ to stay together on their rounds.

"Talk to you later, Hermione." He waved goodbye and walked away as quickly as he could without seeming like he was running, feeling deeply relieved when he took a turn and they no longer shared a corridor.

Harry had thought she would say yes. Not that he thought most girls would say yes-he didn't. But he and Hermione were best friends. He'd been about sixty percent sure she'd at least be willing to go to a dance with him and see how it went.

Being told no was shocking, shock in the sort of way that made Madam Pomfrey talk about 'treating for shock,' but it wasn't surprising. If she'd just said that she felt sisterly toward him and didn't want to disrupt their friendship, or if she'd said she was still hung up on Krum, it would've been disappointing, but easy enough to accept. Her saying that she preferred Ron though...

Harry had occasionally suspected there was something there, but he was Harry and Ron was Ron. He was as good or better than Ron in every class, he was more responsible, and he was the leader. And whereas Ron stopped talking to Hermione for a while pretty much every year, and could be quite nasty to her, the only time Harry remembered doing that was third-year, over the firebolt, and even then Ron had been meaner to her even though it had been Harry's broom.

Harry dismissed the idea that Hermione liked people being mean to her.

Ron was better at chess, which couldn't be it either, and at being funny. Not that Ron was really funny, but he was funny more often than Harry, or at least made the attempt to be. He did, when he wasn't in a huff, lighten the mood, and maybe for a very serious person like Hermione, Ron's mood-lightening abilities were what did it.

Or maybe he, Harry Potter, was, without realizing it, a tremendous git who Ron and Hermione only hung out with because they'd known him too long to not, or maybe he was ugly, or smelled bad, or seemed quite unstable with his hot temper, his impulsive actions and his aching scar.

If he was a git, he could be less of a git, if he was ugly, well, he should get Madam Pomfrey to take a look at his teeth to make sure they were straight and he should figure out something to do about his hair, and he should really try to be less hot-tempered and impulsive. And he should be funny, of course. That's what Sirius said. Good jokes raised skirts. But not too many self-deprecating jokes. The girls started believing them, Sirius said. Not that he was trying to get girls to raise their skirts.

And he wasn't plotting how to convince Hermione that she'd made a mistake. Just, he wasn't used to losing to Ron at anything more important than a friendly game of chess.

 _Ron._

Whenever he thought about how Hermione was smarter than him and got better grades and had correctly advised him to not do all sorts of things he'd gone ahead and done anyway, he just had to think about Ron to feel better about himself.

When had he started thinking about Ron as someone who wasn't as good as him?

"One fish said to the other, 'the water's nice today.' The other fish said, 'what's water?' No, that's more of a metaphor than a joke, isn't it? What did the fly say when it ran into the windshield? 'Don't have the guts to do that again.' That'll only work for muggle-borns, wizard-borns won't get it. She is a muggle-born though. How many wizards does it take to screw in a light bulb? Just two. One to transfigure a ladder, the other to confund a muggle into climbing it."

Eh. That had the form of a joke, but it wasn't really funny, now was it?

Trying to date was hard.

#

#

Harry sat next to Hermione at breakfast and hoped he didn't look as nervous as she did.

They were silent, which was hardly unusual, but the silence was strange and they didn't want to look at each other but they didn't want to look away either.

Harry said, "So... Got your timetable."

"Yes." She tugged on her hair. "You? Do you have your timetable?"

"Yeah."

Hermione said, "About last night..."

"We've been best friends since first-year. We're going to stay that way. No awkwardness, right?" Sirius and Remus had laughingly assured him that telling a female friend he was romantically interested would not damage a strong friendship in any lasting way, and he was terrified by the thought that they might have been wrong.

"Right," said Hermione.

But the awkwardness didn't fade till he annoyed her in History of Magic. It was the first class of the year, and Harry handled it how Sirius and Remus said the Marauders always had.

He sat, charmed a quill to write whatever Binns said, put on his headphones, and read the textbook.

Binns didn't notice. Binns hardly noticed anything, and he surely had no idea what headphones were. He probably thought Harry's hair was weird.

Hermione glared a little, but Harry directed her attention to Ron, who was sleeping. Harry shrugged as if to say, 'Better than what he's doing.'

Hermione shook her head, and it wasn't until class was over and they were on their way to potions that they talked about it.

"At least Ron's trying to pay attention, he's just failing. You've completely given up on it."

Harry turned to Ron, "Were you trying to pay attention?"

"I figure history class nap into my sleep schedule, to be honest. The textbook makes a good pillow after I cast a softening charm on it."

Hermione said, "Ronald Weasley!"

"Yes? Lighten up."

Harry said, "I bet I learned more during class than you did, Hermione."

"It's very disrespectful to Professor Binns."

"I'm not in History of Magic to show respect to Binns that he won't ever notice. I'm here because my timetable tells me I'm supposed to be. So long as I am, I might as well prep for my OWLs and maybe even learn a bit about history." He waved the parchments the lecture had been recorded on through the air. "I'll read the lecture later. Ron, want a copy?"

"Sure enough."

Leaning against a wall in the hallway, he took more parchment out of his bookbag, cast the copying charm, and gave the copy to Ron.

Hermione said, "We're not supposed to use magic in the hallways."

Ron said, "But Hermione. We're using it to further our educations. That can't be bad."

Hermione huffed, and Ron and Harry exchanged grins. Harry said, "Hermione, you know we love you dearly," Hermione turned red, "and we would be dead without you, but you're a little ridiculous sometimes. And speaking of ridiculous. Remember, be moderately friendly to _Draco,_ and be mildly surprised when he doesn't return the favor."

Ron said, "I still don't see how this will work."

"It'll work because Crabbe and Goyle don't actually like Malfoy. Plus, they're easily bought."

"You didn't!" said Hermione.

"Eleven galleons each."

Hermione chewed her lip and said, "I shouldn't approve, but he's such a git."

Ron said, "You're spending 22 galleons to torment Malfoy?"

"If it works, second best purchase I've ever made, after my wand."

Ron looked peeved, but when they entered the potions classroom Ron made toward Vincent Crabbe.

Ron took a deep breath and said, "Hey Vince. How was summer?"

Crabbe startled, grinned, and said, "Pretty good. Practiced my beating. You?"

Ron said, "About the same. I'm gonna try out for Keeper this year."

"What's your broom?"

"Got a Cleansweep 12, fresh out of production," Ron said. "Early Christmas from brother Bill."

"That's a nice broom."

Malfoy grabbed Crabbe and pulled him away.

"Seeya," said Ron.

Malfoy hissed, "What are you doing talking to Weasley?"

Crabbe's brow furrowed, "Hmmm? What's wrong with Ron?"

"He's the enemy"

Goyle said, "Draco, you okay?"

Malfoy looked between Crabbe and Goyle, than to Ron, who looked quite confused.

Goyle said, "Always thought of them more as rivals than enemies, yeah?"

Harry waved. "Hey Draco, how's being a prefect?"

"Looking for advice, Potty? I suppose the responsibility is already too much for you."

"Potty?" said Harry, as if he'd never heard it before.

Snape swept in, and Malfoy shut his mouth.

"Before we begin today's lesson," said Snape, gliding to the front of the room and locking them all with his gaze, "I feel it is appropriate to remind you that you'll be sitting an important exam this coming June, during which you will demonstrate how much you have learned about the composition and use of potions. Moronic though some this class undoubtedly are, I expect you to scrape an 'acceptable' your OWL, or suffer my... displeasure."

His gaze lingered upon Neville, who gulped.

"After this year, many of you will cease studying with me," Snape went on. "Those who get an Outstanding on your potions OWLs will be admitted into my NEWT course. Those who get EEs will be subject to my _generous_ discretion." Snape's sneer on 'generous' left little doubt that few of those who got EEs would be allowed. "Those with As and below need not apply for admittance."

On the one hand, Harry liked very much the idea of not having a class with Snape anymore. On the other hand, Remus and Sirius had communicated clearly that they had gotten NEWTs in potions, and his mother and father had done so also, Lily being one of the stars of the class, and they expected him to take and pass the class as well.

Snape briefly explained the day's potion, the Draught of Peace, and Harry got to it, following the directions on the board.

Harry read the directions twice before starting, noticing how much easier it was than before. He'd always sat at the back to avoid Snape, and then had had to squint to read the directions. But with his new glasses, the directions were easily legible, even from the back.

He tried to make sense of the potion, as he occasionally had, and gave it up for a lost cause when he couldn't figure why the hellebore syrup didn't make the whole potion boil off.

It was a difficult, fiddly potion, and Harry had to calm himself several times, aiming for the relaxed focus _Mind's Mortar_ suggested.

After somewhat over an hour, Ron's potion was spitting green sparks, Seamus was trying to relight the flames beneath his cauldron, which he'd somehow put out, and Neville was dealing with his potion from arm's length, ready to flee if it exploded.

Harry's potion was a dull steaming grey, not quite the shimmering silver vapor that Hermione and Malfoy had managed, but better than most.

Harry gave the blond ponce a thumbs up.

Snape stalked over, looked at Harry's potion, and said "Imprecise. An imprecisely made potion may be even more dangerous than a disaster, for you'll be tempted to drink it. Minus five points from Gryffindor."

Snape turned away, and his eyes lit up when he saw Neville's potion.

As Snape took a step toward Neville, Harry said, "Professor Snape, Sir, I've been meaning to say this for a while now. About your hair. I know you're a potions master, but that doesn't mean you're a haircare master. I wonder if you might benefit from talking to some of the girls in my dorm. Lavender and Parvati especially, they really know their stuff."

Snape turned, mouth thin, black eyes glittering.

"Just a suggestion, sir. To thank you for always holding me to such rigorous standards."

Snape said, "Detention, Potter. And minus fifteen points from Gryffindor."

Harry winked at Snape, who curled his lip.

When class let out, Hermione hissed, "What was that? Are you insane? We lost points."

Harry looked around to make sure no one was looking-he really had to master a privacy charm or two-and pulled Hermione and Ron close. Harry whispered, "Dumbledore's orders. I'm supposed to have a detention with Snape every week. To work on occlumency. Seeing as I have to have a detention with him anyway, and he knows it... It's almost like having immunity. I'll talk to Dumbledore about the points."

They made their way to lunch, and Harry had a snit with Ron.

They'd gone back to sitting with him at meals, rather than minding the firsties, and as breakfast drew to a close, Ron said, "Time for Divination."

"Better you than me," said Harry.

Ron frowned and said, "Aren't you coming?"

"I'm not taking divination. I've got third-year Runes instead. I told you in a letter."

"No you didn't."

"Yes, I did." He'd said a lot of things in that letter, and Ron had replied with a blanket 'That's great!,' then spent most of a page on his new summer Quidditch training. "Did you even read all my letters?"

"Of course. I must've missed that part. If you really wrote it."

"I wrote it." It had only been a sentence or two. It was possible Ron had accidentally skipped it.

"So you're abandoning me."

"It's one class." Granted, the first time ever they'd take a class without each other. But one class. "That's hardly abandonment."

Ron glared. "Why'd you wanna drop divination anyway? It's easy."

"Hasn't seemed easy to me. Just useless and stuffy and she tells me I'll die. And I read about Runes over the summer and the class is intended for 13-year-olds, so I think it'll be easy."

Ron stalked off, muttering about loyalty, which Harry thought was rich. He glanced at Hermione, but she had to go to Arithmancy.

Harry wondered what to do. He had a free period without either of his friends. That hadn't ever happened before.

He could read, but he'd done an awful lot of that lately, completing all the books he'd gotten over the summer, and over the weekend between arrival and class beginning he'd spent hours on spellcasting-mostly working on Hermione's birthday gift, which was coming along nicely.

He looked at the transcript of Binn's lecture and found that Binns was more interesting when read than when listened to. Not that reading the transcript was thrilling, but Harry had never appreciated how much of the mind-numbing boredom of Binn's lectures came from the professor's slow monotone.

Now if he could just enchant a quill so it would replace the phrase 'and thus, for that reason,' with 'so.'

Reading the lecture got old before he was halfway through, so he ran to his dorm and grabbed his firebolt, wondering why he didn't carry it around in his pocket. He'd read his guide to broomstick care, and you could do that, though you had to careful not to fuddle the enchantments, and it was a good idea to cast a couple simple charms to keep from breaking the miniaturized shaft or fouling the bristles. And keep it in a case, maybe.

He opened one of his room's window, rose, then dove, whooping as he picked up speed, pulling out of his dive just above the ground, and continuing straight, brushing the edge of his shoe against the dirt, and rose once more, corkscrewed, looped, and went through a series of dives.

He took his right hand off the broom, which felt slightly uncomfortable. Usually, when he wanted to catch the snitch, he kept his right hand on the broom and snatched at it with his left hand.

He aimed his wand at a stick far below.

 _"Wingardium Leviosa."_

The stick shot into the air. He tugged it left, released it, and tore after it as it fell. With both hands occupied he couldn't catch it, so when it was in reach he cast another Levitation Spell and threw the stick again.

That got old after a few repetitions and he let the stick hit the ground.

He checked his watch and said, _"Avis."_

An oddly yellow merlin shot from the tip of his wand, the falcon small, fast and agile.

Harry holstered his wand and took after the conjured bird.

He corkscrewed above it, facing down. The bird dove, surprising him with its speed, twisted to the side, and climbed more quickly than he would've expected.

Not as quickly as a firebolt. Harry grabbed it and pulled it to his chest. The conjured bird looked at him calmly, and Harry blew on it at the same moment he canceled the spell, the bird disappearing in mist and smoke.

He understood why they didn't use birds as snitches anymore.

 _"Avis!"_ said Harry, and ten merlins appeared.

They dove at him.

Harry rolled, dived, looped, cast stupefy, and missed.

He flew away and thought of restrictions so he couldn't just leave them behind and break the game. He had to stay in the triangle formed by the lake, the greenhouse, and the edge of the forbidden forest.

 _"Stupefy."_

A bird fell, hit the ground below, and vanished into nothingness. Harry tried the spell again, but the next bird dodged. Harry used Vermillious, curious as to whether the conjuration would survive the reds sparks, one of the weakest offensive spells he knew.

A few sparks, but not a faceful of them. He'd have to improve his conjurations for them to ever be much use in a fight.

A claw tore his cloak. Harry laughed, corkscrewed, knocking the Merlin off, and hit it with a knockback jinx.

He rose for some space, thinking to practice his accuracy at range. A merlin put a scratch on his arm, and Harry stunned at it close range.

 _"_ _Incendio,"_ yelled Harry, not setting the birds on fire, but creating a wedge of fire in the air. It only lasted a couple seconds, but that was long enough for three merlins to fly into it.

When Harry landed, all the merlins defeated, he cast a cleansing charm on himself and a mending charm on his robes, washed his few cuts in the loo, and made his way to defense.

The class started how he'd thought it would.

The desks were filled, the students waiting for their tardy Professor to arrive. Ron was frowning and grumbling but apparently cooling down, and Harry was trying to write left-handed while holding his wand in his right hand-the news that his parents' wands hadn't even been on their persons when Voldemort came that had him obsessing more and more about always having his wand to hand-when Moody stumped in and started casting silent stunners.

Harry threw up a Protego-he'd had the spell on the tip of his tongue the moment he'd heard Moody's stump-legged walk. Reducto came to mind when he thought of what spell to cast next, and he had to remind himself that this Moody wasn't the man he and Cedric had fought less than three months ago.

Hermione put up a protego, shielding Harry and Ron, allowing Harry to drop his own shield. Eight merlins burst into being from the end of his wand and dove at Moody-not the best birds for the task, perhaps, but he'd just practiced making them.

He conjured a badger beneath his desk, stuck his arm past Hermione's shield, and cast Expelliarmus at Moody.

Moody dodged the Disarming Charm, and the merlins disappeared in a wave of fire

A set of ropes dove over Hermione's shield, tangling up Ron.

Harry's conjured badger crawled across the floor, one leg nonfunctional, another not working right. It was a tad misty. No surprise. They didn't officially learn animal conjuring till next year.

Still, the badger dragged closer to Moody.

Moody whirled and stomped his peg leg on the mangled, shadowy badger, which disappeared in a puff.

Most of the class was casting various hexes at Moody (only a couple others seemed to know Stupefy) and Moody's shield had formed a sphere. Some spells hit the sphere, others missed and hit classmates. A Stupefy, a Petrificus Totalus and a Jellylegs all hit Hermione's shield, straining it. She was sweating.

Harry got the ropes off Ron, told him to help Hermione, and stepped outside the protection of the shield to cast the most powerful Stupefy he could at Moody.

Moody's shield shuddered, and the old Auror shouted, "Enough."

The firing of spells trailed off, and Harry took a look around the classroom. Desks were overturned and students were slumped. Harry cast Rennervate on Lavender, and countered the Petrificus Totalus on Parvati. Hermione saw what he was doing and performed the same services for Dean and Neville.

Moody said, "Potter's got the right idea. The moment the fight's over, he's assisting his allies, but keeping an eye on me the whole time. Ravenclaws, you ought to be doing the same."

The students set to, and when everyone had been revived, Moody said, "Fifth-year! For those who don't take your NEWTs, this is your last year of Defense. After this, you'll be expected to defend yourself in the real world. Is anyone ready? No. Potter did the best at this little drill, but even he didn't do well. Potter, you conjured a badger, poorly. Why choose a badger?"

Harry said, "They're low to the ground and easy to miss, but potentially dangerous."

"Good reasoning. Would've worked better if it'd been a better badger, but tell me, Potter, which two types of animals are easier than any others to conjure?"

"Birds and snakes."

"Correct. If you knew that, why not conjure a snake? They're low to the ground, easy to miss, and potentially dangerous. Well?"

The answer was that he'd spent half of his second year being called the Heir of Slytherin by frightened classmates who'd avoided him, but he wasn't about to say that in class. "I thought you'd be expecting it."

"Lesson for you all," said Moody. "Surprise is nice, but the expected and effective is better than the unexpected and ineffective. Next time, conjure a snake. Two maybe. You're a parselmouth, boy. Learn to use it."

Harry nodded, not so much agreeing as encouraging Moody to proceed to the next subject.

"You've had, I believe, a decent education the last two years, but not the years before that. You're all a long damn way from where you need to be. So I'll be pushing you hard. Tell me, what are the five basic dangers to wizards? Longbottom."

Neville looked around the classroom.

Moody said, "Well? What's dangerous?"

"W-Wizards," said Neville.

"Correct, but don't stutter. It makes you seem weak, and the weak are attacked. Often by wizards. We all carry deadly weapons from the time we're eleven years old, and we all spend at least five years in a class aimed at teaching us how to use them. A decent proportion of us are evil bastards. Wizards are dangerous and you should be suspicious of them."

Moody said, "You, the Ravenclaw girl who looks like a Gryffindor girl."

"I'm Padma Patil. You don't remember me?"

"It was a long summer. What else is dangerous?"

"Creatures. Trolls. Werewolves. Giants. Dementors."

"Yes. They're dangerous," said Moody. "Some less so than wizards, some more. Some more trustworthy, some less. Some can be dealt with much as wizards are, others need special treatment. Care of Magical Creatures is a helpful class, though Professor Hagrid and I may not always have the same perspective on matters."

The class laughed, though Harry wasn't sure whether it was supposed to be a joke.

Moody said, "Miss Granger, name another danger. We have a special class on them as well, and I believe you know more about them than most, despite not being in that class."

Hermione looked reluctant, but said, "Muggles. Potentially. Though most of them are really quite nice and wouldn't have anything against wizards if they knew about them."

Some of the students laughed at the thought of muggles being dangerous.

Moody's glare silenced them. "Muggles are dangerous. They're every bit as clever and vicious as wizards. And they have guns, explosives, cars, video cameras. Most of their technologies can be disrupted through area affect jinxes, if you know it's coming, but even then, even if you deprive them of their usual weapons, they can come up with new tricks you weren't expecting, and if all else fails, they can come at you with clubs and shields. As an Auror, I've seen dark wizards attack muggles, and I've seen confused muggles fight back. I've seen them knife wizards dead and shoot them with guns. I've seen them break the Imperius, shake off Confundus charms and even resist Obliviation. And there's a lot of the buggers.

"But most of the wizardly deaths to muggles come with no malice. Every year, wizards who don't understand cars get hit by them and die. Rather as if a muggle, seeing a wizard use the floo, stepped into the fireplace without using floo powder. Which brings us to our fourth danger. Mr. Goldstein."

"The government?" said Anthony Goldstein.

"Falls under wizards," said Moody.

"Goblins?"

"Goblins are Magical creatures.

"Then... accidents? You might fall and hit your head?"

"Right. Stupid accidents kill far more wizards than muggles do. Just last month, Jimmy Fallbrook slipped in the bath, cracked his head on the tile, and drowned in his own tub. First thing every morning, I cast a cushioning spell on my head and spine. Three months ago, Eugenie Samtick put her wand in her back pocket, sat on it, blew off her left buttock, and bled out before help arrived. Who here has a wand holster?"

Harry and a few others raised their hands.

"Everyone ought to have one. Wand care is a must. But there's one danger left. Mr. Potter, I'm told you've read up on it."

What he'd read up on. "Using Dark Magic."

A few of the Ravenclaws tittered and were silenced by Moody's glare.

"Why, Potter, is Dark Magic dangerous to use?"'

Harry felt singled out, being the only one asked to explain why, but he'd spent a lot of the summer reading up on the subject-it was what _Dark Arts and Purehearts_ was about, all 400 pages of it, and it'd been interesting.

Harry said, "It's not about the effect. If I hit someone with a decent Reductor curse, that person would die just as easily as if I hit someone with an Organ Expelling curse-The Reductor would cause more damage, even. But spell casting has mental mechanics. In order to cast a Reductor, I need to intend an explosion. I do have to target the spell, and on a moral level, it definitely matters what my target is. But the spell itself doesn't care what I aim at. And there's no emotional component to the spell. Just the intention.

"But the Organ Expelling curse requires an emotional component. It needs a sadistic desire to for my target to be mutilated. So in order to really make a practice of Dark Magic, to become good at it, you have to cultivate your darker emotions. Anger, contempt, hatred, sadism. Xenophobia and insecurity. And once you've cast the Dark Magic, a residue remains in you, and it pushes you toward more of those darker feelings. That's why it's called Dark Magic."

Moody said, "A nearly perfect answer, Potter. The others could take notes from it. Five points to Gryffindor. But tell me. NEWT students and Auror candidates are tested on resisting the Imperius. You lot were last year-which was a mistake, fourth-year was too young, but you'll do it again this year, because many of you won't be in the NEWT class and you need to know how to resist it. So how is it that Defense professors the world over are given dispensation to cast that spell on their students? It's an Unforgivable. One of the worst of the lot. Are we all evil bastards?"

Harry said, "From what I've read, the Imperius curse requires a complete desire to dominate the other person. A sincere abhorrence of the fact that the target doesn't think like you do and doesn't want to do what you want them to do."

Moody nodded, so Harry continued.

"If I were teaching defense, and I were casting the Imperius on students, and I didn't feel that way about them naturally, I'd have to psyche myself up to it. Like acting. Imagine they're someone I do feel that way about. Or think about how they don't study enough. My deeper intention of teaching my students would definitely counteract some of the effects. Still, you tend to become what you pretend to be. Knowing occlumency could help. And aferward, I'd want to do purification and cleansing rituals on myself and my wand."

Moody said, "And get a stiff drink with friends. You don't think performing cleansing and purification rituals is overkill?"

"Constant Vigilance," said Harry. "I'd probably also perform some spells that require a positive emotional state. The Patronus Charm, for example."

"Another perfect answer. Ten points to Gryffindor. It's true, Kiddies. Dark Magic is like certain illegal potions. A bit of the tamer stuff won't damage you irrevocably, but it's hard to just do it once and to stick to the tamer stuff. I've seen bright young wizards just wanting to do interesting research and protect themselves from bullies, who, before long were torturing muggles and casting the Imperius on family members. The best way to avoid the danger of Dark Magic is to not cast it. The first four dangers are, obviously, different."

Moody said, "The first four dangers share the same four steps to safety.

"First, Avoid the dangerous situation. That means stealth spells, mood charms, wards, messaging spells, muggle-managing spells, muggle knowledge, creature knowledge, common sense, proper wand care, CONSTANT VIGILANCE, and plain old talking. Never doubt that keeping a civil tongue in your head can save your life.

"Second, preparation. You must prepare to deal with the possible conflict from a position of maximum advantage. That again means stealth spells, mood charms, wards, messaging spells, area-affect jinxes, conjurations, transformations, wand care, cushioning spells, hardening and softening charms, legal knowledge of the terms of engagement so you don't go to Azkaban, basic health and hygiene-nearly everything you've ever learned can help you prepare. And of course, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

"Third, kicking ass, as the muggles say. This is most of what people think when they hear 'Defense Against the Dark Arts,' but in many ways it's the easiest step. So don't muck it up. If fighting becomes necessary, you'd best know how to handle yourself. Shields, stunners, footwork, fitness, tactics, hexes and jinxes, counter curses, performing under pressure, and CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

"Fourth, the aftermath. That means properly securing a subdued opponent so you or your friends don't get killed by something you thought you'd taken care of, cleaning the scene to, if appropriate, cover up signs of the conflict, first-aid, and of course, CONSTANT VIGILANCE. I've seen wizard after wizard die after they though the fight was over. Relaxing, sitting back, having touching little moments with each other, and boom, and with a roar of spellfire, someone's dead.

"And through of all this, through whatever you do, it's critical you maintain the Statute of Secrecy. There's nearly six billion muggles out there, yes, billion with a B, one thousand millions, and we do not want a war with them. They outnumber us about ten thousand to one. If you're reckless with the Statute, you'll find yourself in Azkaban eventually. Or, possibly, you'll get the world destroyed."

There was lot of muttering around the classroom as some of the purebloods tried to take in those numbers. Many of them looked to be doubting it.

"Believe it. Every Defense course ought to include a muggle-studies component, especially now that you're getting older, getting closer to the point where you might wander off into the muggle world by yourself.

"I'll be cramming all that into you, not just into your heads but into your bodies, all within the confines of prepping your for your OWLs." Moody's face twisted as he said OWLs. "We ought to be teaching to life, not to a test, but you have to do well to take the NEWT class, and the test isn't bad, at least.

"But for those of you who want more than I'll have time to offer in class, I'm starting the Hogwarts Defense Association. Dueling. Spell drills. Counter-curses. Preparation. Calisthenics. Warding. Basic cursebreaking. For now..."

Moody waved his wand, and questions appeared on the board. The first read, _1)_ _You and your friend have been attacked by an unknown wizard using potentially lethal dark magic. Apparition and por_ _t_ _key have been jinxed. In the same moment that your friend hit your enemy with cutting curses to the leg and chest, your friend_ _was_ _struck by an unknown curse and thrown ten feet behind you. What do you do?_

Harry's instinct was that he'd check on his friend. But that was clearly a very stupid answer. If he turned his back to the wizard, be struck in the back by dark magic, die, and then the wizard would kill his friend. Hermione, maybe, in the scenario.

He could put up a shield while he checked on her, but if she was seriously injured what could he actually do other than say, "Hermione, oh my god, don't die." And they wouldn't be able to escape either.

The better option would be to take out the unknown wizard as quickly as possible, then help Hermione. He could use his mirror to call for help once the portkey and apparition wards were down.

As for taking the wizard out. What did that mean? Sirius's war stories made clear that while the classic trio of Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Incarcerous, neutralized most opponents reliably, the most reliable spell trio of all was Reducto, Reducto, Reducto.

Harry wrote, "I would press the attack while the enemy was disadvantaged and help my friend as soon as the enemy had fled or was defeated." Then he moved to the next question.

 _2\. Yo_ _ur friend made an appointment to see you at 10 O'clock, and arrives at 10:30. Your friend is usually punctual. What do you do?_

Harry blinked, thinking he'd welcome his friend inside and ask about the cause of the delay. Like any normal, well-adjusted person.

Except, Moody had been impersonated by a polyjuiced impostor for most of a year. And he, Harry had been the target of that impersonation. And he and Ron had once used Polyjuice to impersonate his enemy's closest companions.

It wouldn't hurt to ask the tardy friend an identifying question.

#

#

"Potter, stay behind."

A few students gave him curious glances, but it had been plenty apparent last year that Potter was Mad-Eye Moody's favorite student.

Finally the class had emptied except for Moody, Harry, Hermione and Ron.

Moody motioned for Hermione and Ron to leave.

Harry said, "I don't keep secrets from them. Whatever you want to say, they can hear. And no offense, but I'd rather not be alone with you. Remarkably enough, the Defense professor has tried to do me serious harm every year I've attended Hogwarts."

"Every year?" said Moody, sounding intrigued.

"It wasn't Professor Lupin's fault. But if Dumbledore hasn't read you in on that situation, I won't either."

Moody raised his wand, and Harry took one step back while taking a firmer grip on his own wand.

Moody said, "Just privacy spells. You're twitchy. That's good. How much of that is because I look like the fake?"

"Some."

"You're wondering why I'm your Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor, considering that last year clearly showed I can't defend myself against the dark arts."

"Everyone gets beat sometimes," said Harry. "I was more wondering about why you're here, considering you don't look healthy." Pale and gaunt.

"You've heard about the jinx on the position?"

"It's real?"

"Seems to be. Potter, would you say I was the Defense Professor last year? I didn't teach, but I did sign a contract, and I spent the whole year in the Defense office. My lesson plans were mostly followed, and the man who did teach used my name and polyjuiced himself as me."

"You teaching could confuse the jinx?" said Harry.

"Headmaster Dumbledore believes it just might cause a fatal glitch. Healthy or not, I'm here. I do have a problem though." He motioned Ron and Hermione closer. "How similar am I to that damn Death Eater's imitation?"

Harry said, "Pretty similar. The focus of the class seems a little different, but you can probably cover that up with it being a different year for all your students, and by mentioning that you learned a lot from last year."

"Tell me about the class last year. I need to know more about what he did that I can learn going over damn paperwork."

:::

At the end of book 7, so far as I can tell, Harry's most impressive spell is still Expecto Patronum, which he learned his third year. That ain't gonna stand.

The bit about Dark Magic has been influenced by any number of fics, but I want to bring particular attention and thanks to Mira Mirth's On the Way to Greatness, one of the great uncompleted fics. (Here's hoping the author will finish it someday.) I'm somewhat stretching the definition of "Not really AU, canon compliant except for the timeline divergence," but even canon isn't fully canon compliant, so meh.

Snape's introductory speech is taken almost verbatim from canon. I didn't bold those parts, because I find that annoying.

September 1st of 1995 was a Friday. Thus, they had two full days at Hogwarts before classes started.

Monstrosity, by JLL, available on Amazon. I wrote it. It's good, and it only costs 99 cents.

So far as I can tell, in the books Harry never uses a conjured or transformed animal in a fight. Here, he spent several hours over the summer watching memories of his dad and Dumbledore do just that. Expect an effect.

'Canonical' population figures are inconsistent. Making the world small when small is suited and large when large is suited is part of JK's brilliance, but managing that properly is beyond me. Between 10 and 20 thousand wizards in Britain, about half a million worldwide.

Harry will not be leading the DA this year. This does deprive him of a chance to work on his leadership skills, but will give him better circumstances in which to improve his own magical abilities.


	8. Chapter 8: First Week

Chapter 8: Opening Week

The first day of Charms was easy. Flitwick gave a lecture about the OWLs, then they spent an hour reviewing the Summoning Spell, which Harry had no need to review. He'd mastered it last year for the first task. He worked on doing it with minimized wand movements and at doing it silently, enjoying small success at the first and none at the second.

After a similar lecture from McGonagall in Transfiguration, they started on Vanishing Spells, and Harry was surprised to be the second student to make his snail disappear.

Hermione had done it on only her third try, collecting ten points for Gryffindor, and started trying to explain it to Ron, who mainly ignored her rhapsodies on theory.

Harry had never cared very much for theory. The Professors had stuffed plenty of it into his head over the years, and he'd even done a decent job regurgitating it in essays and exams, but he'd never applied it to his spellcasting before.

He'd just moved his wand the right way, said the incantation, and kept at it till the spell happened. An approach that failed least in defense, where the spells tended toward simple and the requisite intentions had more to do with results than the operations.

But if that was his approach, why had he read all those books over the summer?

He didn't just want the snail to disappear. He wanted it to fold into unbeing, to rejoin the underlying potentiality that underlaid all existence. That stuff that had been there before anything was. That's what vanishment was. The sound of one hand clapping.

He was thinking about that as he cast the spell, and feeling his own magic, because practicing magic detection over the summer had improved his ability to sense his own magic, and that was a lot to think about, the theory, the intention, the feel of his own magic, the incantation, the wand movement, and it was a struggle to keep paying attention to what he was doing instead of falling into mindless repetition.

Except all those different pieces of the spell were hooked together, weren't they?

They clicked together, and the snail vanished.

"Five points for Gryffindor," said McGonagall, but Harry hardly noticed. He was staring where the snail had been.

He'd done vastly flashier magic, and it was hardly his first time being the second to perform a spell. But the performance of the spell had felt different in some way that didn't seem important, but he knew it was.

He'd read about it. The Sense of the Spell.

He asked for another snail so he could try again, and Professor McGonagall gave him a handful of pebbles.

Oh.

Turning a pebble into a snail was an easy task, except the snail seemed a bit pebbly, so he undid and redid it, and undid and redid it again before feeling satisfied that it would be a snail he was vanishing.

It took four tries to manage the spell again, and six tries before he got that strange little feeling again. Like using magic was opening a door, and the top hinge had always been loose, but now he was tightening it.

Slowly, the pebbles were turned into snails, and the snails were released into unbeing.

Hermione, who'd been sitting there primly, assisting other students from time to time, looked at what he was doing, and looked at the other students, her gazing resting longest on Ron, and seeming quite nervous, asked McGonagall for her own handful of pebbles, and she quickly caught and surpassed Harry in the number vanished.

Harry said, "Hermione. You know every time when you told me about theory and I didn't listen because I thought it wasn't worth listening to?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you and sorry."

They did some potions homework in the library, hurried along by Harry having read a bit over the summer about the use of moonstones in potions.

Ron's joke about how his snail had at least turned paler was funny the first time, not so much the fourth, and Harry was getting a bit irritated at Ron by the time they got to Care of Magical Creatures.

Hagrid was there, with a bunch of little twiglike creatures and a magical chalkboard with large rubber wheels. It followed him around like a lost puppy, and it wasn't until Hagrid gestured for it to stay in place that Harry noticed Hagrid's wand.

If anyone had asked Harry what Hagrid's wand would be like, if he had one, Harry would've guessed a decent-sized truncheon. What Hagrid held was, in fact, the biggest wand Harry had ever seen, but still just a wand.

Hagrid went on for a bit about the exceptional fighting abilities of bowtruckles in defending their trees, and explained how to make nice with them, which was mostly about feeding wood lice to the bowtruckles (but without making it appear you were trying to infest the tree with wood lice) and watering or fertilizing the tree or some such.

It was a bit more information than Hagrid usually gave, and whenever he flicked his wand, a very nice chalk drawing appeared on the chalkboard, illustrating what he was saying. Then they were set to feeding feeding woodlice to the bowtruckles, in what Harry counted as one of the better Care classes he had had.

The three of them hung around once class had ended and approached Hagrid.

"Nice wand," said Harry, and Hermione gave the half-giant a hug.

Hagrid grinned from ear-to-ear even as he was teary-eyed. "Took a long time, thought it might never happen for a bit, but Dumbledore leaned on 'em hard. He's got a lot of influence, Dumbledore. And with me bein' a Professor..."

Hermione said, "You must have passed an OWL, if you're being allowed to use a wand as an adult."

Hagrid said. "Passed me OWL and me NEWT for Care for Magical Creatures before yer third year. Got Os."

Hermione covered her broad grin with a hand, but Harry and Ron failed to conceal their surprise.

"What?" said Hagrid. "Yeh didn' think Dumbledore would let me teach without it, did yeh? Did Astronomy, History of Magic and Herbology OWLs and NEWTS this summer too. More Os. Well, E on my History of Magic Newt. End o' this year, I'll take my OWLs in the others."  
Hermione said, "Hagrid that's wonderful."

The man beamed, but seemed to catch some of their surprise, because he added, defensively yet self-deprecatingly, "Kids pass those exams. And I've had a very long time to study. Damn shame if I couldn't get decent marks."

Harry thought of all the times he'd noticed school textbooks in Hagrid's hut. And all the times he'd seen Hagrid perform second, third and even fourth year spells with the snapped pieces of a broken wand. And how, the first time he'd ever met Hagrid, he'd used that broken wand to given Dudley a pig tail, and the Dursleys had had to get it surgically removed. Permanent partial human transfiguration, and the half giant had done it wordlessly, with a broken wand. And the years, the decades Hagrid had been socializing with Professors and reading school textbooks on the sly.

When they'd made their farewells, making for Herbology, Harry said, "Good luck with beating Hagrid on the exams, Hermione. You might need it."

Ron guffawed, but Hermione nodded. She said, "I'm not sure that Hagrid is the most academically gifted person in the world," Ron snorted, and Hermione glared at him as she continued, "but he is in his sixties. Maybe even seventies. He's in the prime of a wizard's intellectual and magical life. And he's had a lot of time to prepare. And this year, he's got fewer exams to take this year than we do. If we don't work hard, Hagrid will crush us."

Herbology went well enough, except for the smell of dragon dung, but matters got a little weird after dinner in the common room.

The twins were once more testing product on willing first-years. Hermione was outraged, but the firsties seemed to think it was fun and they were getting paid, so Harry thought it was fine so long as the twins were sure it was safe.

Hermione disagreed. Loudly. The twins weren't qualified to declare something safe.

Harry said, "What about Slughorn? He used to be the potions professor here. If you tell him you're planning to start a jokeshop and you'd like his advice on making sure your products are safe, he'd probably agree. If Slughorn signed off, that would be good enough, wouldn't it, Hermione?"

Hermione said, "Excellent idea, Harry. Fred, George, you're not testing another product on my first-years until you have Slughorn's sign off." Her smile made clear that she thought they had zero chance of getting that sign off.

The twins exchanged a long look, then sat on either side of Harry. Fred cast a couple of privacy spells, and George quietly said, "Can we tell him you're an investor?"  
Harry said, "I told you that money was a gift."

"And we talked about it, and we don't feel right accepting it as a gift. And it might be very useful to say that Harry Potter is an investor. We wouldn't advertise it, but mentioning it in potential business meetings..."

Harry sighed. He'd had a second meeting with Macequill over the summer, and the goblin would not be happy with him refusing to accept shares in a business he'd provided start-up capital to. "What's my stake?"

"We were thinking 10 percent," said Fred.

Harry figured he ought to ask for more, but nodded instead.

George said, "As our investor, you should look over our plans,"

Fred said, "And you should come with us to talk to Slughorn."

Harry said, "In that case, I want 12 percent. But I'll let you test a product on me once a month."

"Deal," said the twins, and Harry shook their hands.

Harry relaxed into his chair, working on essays for Potions and History, and Hermione put two knit _things_ on the table.

Harry picked one up. Pink wool, small, thick, and generally concave. "Knee pads?" said Harry.

"They're hats. For house-elves." Hermione took the one he'd grabbed from him and covered it with crumpled parchment and a quill. "I didn't have time to make any over the summer, what with our correspondence and putting together the revision book, but now that I'm here I can make them quickly enough with magic."

Ron said, "You're leaving out hats for the house-elves? And you're covering them up with rubbish first?"

"Yes," said Hermione.

"That's not on," said Ron. "You're trying to trick them into picking up the hats. You're setting them free when they might not want to be free."

"Of course they want to be free," said Hermione, though she was quite pink.

"I don't think that will work," said Harry. "Where I stayed over the summer... had a house-elf. He did the laundry. It didn't make him free. Actually, house-elves do our laundry too, and they pick it up off the floor quite often. Again, it doesn't make them free."

Hermione said, "No, doing laundry doesn't, but these are intended as gifts. The intention matters."

Harry wondered how it was that Lucius Malfoy throwing a sock into the air had freed Dobby. Likely it had something to do with Dobby very much wanting to be free and pushing the boundaries of the magic. Harry said, "Even so. You're not their master. Can students free Hogwarts' house-elves? I'd think they'd need to get the clothes from Dumbledore."

Hermione looked glum. "I know. But maybe it will work. I'm going to find out."

Harry said, "I think you should go to the kitchen and talk to the house-elves about what they want."

"I have. I know. They say being slaves is just dandy. But if had been taken from my parents as a toddler and raised as a slave to purebloods and been brainwashed to think that was right and proper and how it was supposed to be, I'd probably defend that system too. And don't tell me that's far-fetched, don't say it couldn't happen, I know very well that there are purebloods out there who think that's exactly how it ought to be, and in times past many of them advocated for it publicly.

Hermione continued, "So yes, I know. The house-elves have been raised and bred to slavery, but that doesn't make it right, it just makes it worse."

Harry and Ron exchanged a look. It didn't take a genius to realize that she saw herself in them. Any disagreement would have to be managed carefully. And Harry, who'd been quite sure she was in the wrong, which had felt a little surreal, was suddenly much less sure, though it still did sit poorly with him.

Hermione said, "Don't you dare touch those hats!"

When she'd gone to her room, Ron cleared the rubbish off the hats. "They should at least see what they're picking up," he said.

#

#

Ancient Runes was awkward at first, being with third-year Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, but 'Divination was useless and I hated it' was an explanation everyone understood. Harry thought the class would be easy if he memorized what he was supposed to and impossible if he didn't.

His detention with Snape on Friday was an hour of mental assault that left him with a splitting headache, his greatest consolation only that Snape was rubbing his temples as well.

Returning to the dorm, he waved to Ron, who was crushing some poor third-year at chess, and took a seat next to Hermione. She cast a privacy spell, slipped him an aspirin and a mug of hot cocoa, and asked if it had gone as badly as he looked.

Harry said, "You know Snape, he doesn't really teach. It's sink or swim, with high standards and a dash of torture. But if I swim, I oughta be a ruddy good occlumens by the end of the year."

Hermione said, "I finished _Mind's Mortar._ I'm finding the meditation exercises quite challenging."

"It took me weeks to get used to them, and I'm still finding them challenging." Not to mention that he was finding himself short on time. "Any idea of what method you'll use?"

Hermione said, "I'm going to try all the methods and see which suits me best, bet I suspect I'll settle on Obsessive Thought, and I'll probably loop the thoughts eventually. Have you talked to Ron about this yet?"  
Harry stood and called for Ron, who'd just won.

The red-head sat with them, and Harry said, "You know how I've been learning occlumency? I figure you might like to try it too. It's a lot of work, but-"

Ron said, "Bill can do it. If I learn, what do they call it, detect-and-hex oughta be enough, shouldn't it?"

Harry said, "Hermione and I are planning on learning the full version, but sure, detect-and-hex should be enough. And you can always take it further if you need to." Harry's understanding was that learning detect-and-hex when you were trying to learn the full version was like going north-east when you wanted to go true north. Not the most efficient use of time, but better than standing still.

Harry said, "I've got the book in my trunk, so you can start on that whenever you like."  
Ron groaned, but nodded. "Since when did you turn into such a bookworm?"

"Reading a few books over the summer doesn't make me a bookworm." Had it been fifteen books, about? About one every four days? Hermione matched that even during the school year. "But as it turns out, there's stuff I want to know that's kept mainly in books, so there isn't much choice about reading them."

"I guess. Give it to me before you two go on your round."

When they stepped outside the portrait for their prefect rounds, Harry proceeded with Hermione to a spot even less well lit than the rest and tried to Disillusion himself. That failed, but the Shadow-Wrapping Charm was easy, as was silencing his shoes. "Let's go spook some firsties."

"If we find anyone out of bed we'll dock them points and send them back to their dorms."

"If you insist." He silenced her shoes. "But don't you remember how, as first-years, we ran from prefects at night as if we thought they'd eat us alive if they caught us out after curfew?"

"Or worse, expel us," said Hermione, smiling slightly. "Alright, I guess stealth might pay." She cast the disillusionment spell on herself-not well, but successfully-and then the supersensory charm.

Harry activated the Marauder's Map and looked quickly for anyone out of the dorms.

The map showed Mrs. Norris, Filch, and Draco Malfoy, a pair of Ravenclaws right outside the Ravenclaw dorm, and two Professors.

Professors Snape and Sinistra, together on top of the Astronomy tower.

Unable to resist finding out what the greasy git was up to, Harry led Hermione that way, and found the two Professors standing by Sinistra's new telescope.

Professor Sinistra had been very excited to tell them all about her new telescope, about how it captured all types of light and completely saw through the atmosphere, and best of all, despite appearing to have only a three foot diameter, had an effective aperture of 200 feet.

Harry didn't identify Astronomy as one of his favorite classes, but the 'looking through telescopes' part of the class had always been nice, and he'd been looking forward to trying out the new telescope.

Unfortunately, Professor Sinistra had put a guardrail up to keep any students from getting within five feet of it and had glared very fiercely when Neville had asked if he could try it.

Harry kept low, laying on the stairs, only his head sticking out above.

Professor Snape was looking through the eyepiece of the telescope, Professor Sinistra watching on anxiously.

Snape stood, and Harry caught a few words of their conversation.

"...magnificent clarity..."

"...long exposure..."

"...nebula..."

"...reduce aconite..."

"...highest apparent magnitude..."

"...simmer only during lunar eclipses..."

Snape consulting Professor Sinistra as to the Astronomical influences on a potion was of no particular interest to Harry, so Harry withdrew.

#

#

It was Saturday at 9:30 in the morning, and rather than sleeping in as Harry might've liked, he was helping Hermione round up the first-years and settle them at tables in the common room.

Eight at one table, eight at another.

Hermione raised her voice, sounding very much like a teacher. "I've spoken to all of your Professors and found out what your homework is and when it's due. I've got a parchment for each of you." She handed out the parchments, all identical except for the names at the top, detailing their homework, each item with a line to be signed by Harry or Hermione when they'd finished the first draft of their homework and a second line to be signed by Harry or Hermione after the students had made the revisions he and Hermione were apparently going to suggest.

The students stared at her with a mixture of worry, fear, and relief, the last reminding Harry of how lost he'd felt his first weeks at Hogwarts. He might've appreciated a firm hand.

Hermione said, "And I've got study plans for all of you. They're color coded." Sounding like a little girl about to get on the ride at an amusement park, Hermione said, "Now let's get to work!"

Harry stuck his fist in his mouth to stop from laughing.

Ben poked him and asked if Hermione was alright.

"She's how she's always been," said Harry. "Get out your homework." He pulled out his own homework and asked his group what they'd thought of the first week.

Artemis said, "Charms seems fun, I think I'll like Professor Flitwick a lot, Herbology, well, sort of okay, the plants might be interesting. Professor McGonagall is a little scary, but in a good way. Professor Moody is scary in a bad way, even though you can tell he's trying not to be scary at all, but he's still really scary. And I don't like Professor Snape."

"That's okay. I don't like him either."

That drew giggles.

Compelled by responsibility, Harry added, "But he is genuinely great at potions. You'll learn a lot if you pay attention to him."

Shelly said, "Is History of Magic always that boring?"

Harry said, "Was it the sort of boredom where your eyes glaze, your ears numb, and you drift involuntarily into a restless sleep?"

"That's it exactly," said Artemis.

"Then yes, it's always like that." He looked for Hermione, saw she was occupied with the other table, lowered his voice, and said, "Don't bother trying to listen. Between the sixteen of you, produce an auto-dictating quill and set it to Binns. Have it record the lecture while you read the textbook. Put earplugs in so you don't hear him too much. Later, bring the transcript of the lecture to me, and I'll make you all copies. Read those, because the lectures are actually fairly informative, even if he's a bit fixated on Goblin Wars, and you'll be set. Just don't tell Hermione about any of this."

The firsties nodded gravely, so Harry said, "Transfiguration homework. Get it done."

He worked on his History of Magic essay, and after just a few minutes, the firsties asked for help.

Artemis said, "We have to write six inches on why incantations matter."

Harry nodded and said, "Dobby, attend."

With a pop, the house-elf appeared, some of the students gasping or drawing back. Dobby said, "What is great master Harry Potter wanting?"

"Dobby here is a house-elf. He works here with other house-elves, cooking your food and cleaning the castle. Most of them like it, but they could do more, if the world were different. Dobby, a small demonstration of your magic, if you would."

Dobby crooked a finger, and Harry's textbook rose.

"See that?" said Harry. "No wand, and no words. I hope to be able to do such a thing in another year or two, but Dobby can do quite a lot more than that. Tell me, Dobby, do you not speak when you perform magic?"

Dobby said, "Sometimes. But house-elves are needing gestures, not words."  
Harry said, "Hmm. Interesting. Goblins don't have much use for words either. Clearly, words aren't fundamental to magic. But for us, magic without words is difficult. You see adults wizards casting silently all the time, non-verbal casting, but they're still thinking the incantation, they've just gotten to the point where they don't have to say it. True alinguistic casting, where you don't think of the incantation at all, is rare for wizards. Dobby here, on the other hand, was born to alinguistic casting.

"Humans process magic through the same parts of our brains that we process language through. House-elves and goblins don't. That makes it seem awfully simple, as if the words are a necessary placebo, but it's more than that. Words are fundamental to how we perform magic, and there's rules to them. If I taught you a spell and told you the wrong incantation, it wouldn't work. But the incantations we teach aren't some natural, godly language. They're bad Latin. And in other parts of the world, they use different incantations. Not Latin at all.

"Word structure matters. The number of syllables, whether the word starts or ends with a vowel, stops, fricatives, and so forth-so we see analogous patterns for the same spell cast in different languages. I could take the incantation 'Wingardium Leviosa,' and create a different incantation with the same pattern, and it while it would work, it wouldn't work as well as the 'true' incantation. Which is partially because ' _wing_ ardium _levi_ osa' sounds to us English speakers like it ought to make stuff levitate, and partially because Magic is 'used to' Wingardium Leviosa."

Some of the firsties were taking notes.

Harry added, "As for what it means that Magic can be 'used to' an incantation? That'd take a lot more than six inches to explain. And I don't get it, honestly." He wasn't sure he truly understood what he'd already said, but it'd been in _The Character of Magic._

Harry said goodbye to Dobby,and the homework session continued until lunch _,_ after which Harry found Ron in their dorm room, reading _Mind's Mortar_ with a grim determination Harry didn't understand but wasn't going to question.

"Quidditch?" said Harry.

Ron dropped the book with a sigh of relief, grabbed his broom, and shouted for Ginny.

While Hermione did homework in the stands, Harry, Ginny and Ron spent a couple hours playing Quidditch together, Harry flying with his left hand, right hand on the Quaffle, doing his best chaser imitation.

Ron wasn't as good as Oliver had been, but Harry thought he had a good chance of making the team as a Keeper, and Ginny was a good enough Chaser to be on a house team-but not good enough to displace Alicia, Angelina, or Katie.

He decided not to say so, but Ginny asked him if the Quidditch team would want back-ups.

"We should. We've lost games because we were down a player." Usually him. Or was it always him? "Can you play seeker?"  
"Just catch the little gold ball, right?"  
"Pretty much," said Harry. "Even first-years who've never seen a proper game can do it." There could be more to it of course, but there didn't have to be.

#

#

The first meeting of the Hogwarts Defense Association was that evening. Fourth-year and up, only. Looking around the hall Moody had claimed, Harry saw a lot of Gryffindors, a fair smattering of Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs, and just a few Slytherins.

"No Malfoy," said Harry, with some relief.

Ron lowered his voice and said, "I'd keep away too if I thought the Professor had turned me into a ferret the other year. It'd be like you coming to a club run by Snape."

Moody called them order, put them in rows, and said, "There's a lot we ought to work on, but we'll begin with fitness. Jog in place for three minutes. Start."

Following a bit of confusion, the students began to jog in place, Moody keeping his normal eye on his watch, his Mad Eye raking around the room.

"Get your knees higher," he said. Then, "Two and a half minutes."

Harry finished the jog quite easily, but some of the students, including Hermione, were breathing quite hard by the end.

"Good," said Moody. "Who knows what a push-up is?"

A number of students raised their hands, and though wasn't among them, Moody said, "Potter, demonstrate."  
Harry dropped and reeled off a few, finding it awkward in his wizarding robes, and Moody said, "See? Like that. Notice his toes are on the ground. All of you, get on the ground and do ten."

To Harry, ten push-ups were half of a set, and some of the others seemed to think the same, but others struggled, Hermione's muscles cried Uncle after two, and some couldn't do any push-ups at all. Moody had those students try push-ups with their knees on the ground instead.

Moody cast a powerful softening charm on the floor and said, "Who knows what a sit-up is?"

When the exercises were over, Moody took them through some stretches, and after having them stretch out their arms as they could go, aiming for the distant ceiling, said, "Sound magic in a sound body, as the ancients said. But now it's time for actual magic. We'll begin with the three Ps. Protego, protego, protego."

#

#

Sunday afternoon, Hermione ventured to the boys' dorm to pull Harry and Ron out of bed.

"You have homework to finish," said Hermione.

"No," said Harry, and stuffed a pillow on his head.

"Yes."  
Harry said, "I've worked hard all week. Between my classes, the special project, HDA, and my prefect duties, there isn't enough time. And you're going to make me attend every extra-curricular, aren't you?"  
"You really should."

"I know I should. If you didn't make me do it, I'd make myself do it, so thanks for taking the blame. Merlin, what am I going to do when Quidditch starts back up?"

"You're going to improve your time-management skills. And you're going to start by getting out of bed and finishing your homework."

Harry rolled out of bed and chased Hermione out of the room by the simple expedient of taking his night shirt off.

He cast an envious glance at Ron, who had somehow slept through that, and twenty minutes later rolled out of the common room.

He stopped at the kitchens for a light lunch then made his way to the library.

He waved to Hermione, who seated at their usual table, and headed straight for the Charms section.

It took him over an hour to find spells suited to his purpose, by which time Ron had joined her and Hermione had built up a stack of books.

Harry took his seat, set a parchment before himself, put an inkwell next to it for easy access, and cast the first charm.

And cast it again. And again.

Ron said, "What are you doing?"

"Saving myself time. I hope." If he could get the charms to work.

After an hour of struggle, the words _Harry Potter_ appeared at the top left of the parchment.

Then, on the top line, indented, _"Moonstones have six primary uses in potions. Moonstones are formed..._

No, how moonstones were formed should go before the statement of the uses, shouldn't it?

Suddenly the paper read, _Moonstones are formed by the accretion of moonlight in areas with strong magical auras, usually in the wilderness. Moonstones have six primary uses in potions, varying dependent upon the moon's cycle and the accretion environment of the moonstones._

Hermione said, "Thought to paper?"

"Yes, though I have to intentionally maintain the connection. But with this, I can produce a sentence in a single second. Much faster than missing around with quills."

Hermione was frowning, so Harry said, "It's not cheating. It's embracing magic."

"Why wouldn't everyone do this?"

Harry shrugged. "It requires basic mind control and tough charm work. But I saw a seventh-year Ravenclaw doing it and asked a few questions."

Harry filled the first parchment, then spent 15 minutes recasting the charms on a second parchment.

Hermione said, "Not as efficient as you thought."

"I'll get quicker with it."

Ron looked on as the new parchment quickly filled. "I'll have to learn that."

"Occlumency first. Just a tad, so the parchment doesn't record every stray thought that shoots through your head."

:::

I'm trying to write this Hermione according to canon, and this Harry as a semi-plausible answer to the question, "What if, instead of spending the summer before his fifth year brooding over Cedric, Voldemort, and the Ministry, canon Harry spent that time reviewing memories in a pensieve, reading books, and being parented by Sirius and Lupin?"

I think I'm doing a decent job at that, and, so far, that Hermione and that Harry have, in my view, zero romantic chemistry. Which is, uh, not the plan. Thoughts? It may just be that I suck at writing romance. Never really tried before.

There is no reason why people with magic should not be absolutely dope at the science of Astronomy with fairly minimal effort. So yeah. Hogwarts has a dope ass telescope that knocks the socks off the James Webb telescope and the Very Large Array put together.

Not to mention space exploration. They literally have propulsionless motion. And if Wizards can't find a way to terraform Mars, something's wrong. And they've quite possibly already invented instantaneous travel. I'm not going to write "Harry Potter and the Exo-Planets" but someone totally should. Just take a bunch of wizards and put them in a hard sci-fi novel. It'll be great.


	9. Chapter 9:HDA

Harry found his classes easier than usual, though not easy. Knowing more theory helped, and a lot of the occlumency exercises were a lot like the visualization exercises McGonagall had long suggested but which Harry had hardly ever done outside the bits of class time they'd devoted to them.

Homework, however... There was a lot of it. The Professors were taking their OWLs seriously. Add to that, the extra-curriculars had started, and Harry had learned a bit about healing. The first night had been just a review of First-Aid from Defense, but the second night he'd learned things he hadn't known before. Seal a wound, mend a bone, heal a bruise. Useful stuff.

His potions class the second week was fun. Not the class itself, of course, though it was a little more interesting now that he had a better idea of what he was doing, but arranging his detention.

Ron, while cutting their buckbeatles, said, "You going to the dance, mate?"

"Maybe. It's not like last year where I had to. I'll go if there's someone I want to go with who wants to go with me." He glanced at Hermione a desk away, wondering if she'd heard that, but she was staring into her cauldron.

Ron said, "Harry, it's a masquerade don't need dates, you just put on your mask and go. Not knowing who you're dancing with is half the fun." Ron frowned, "Except you have to dance, and that part's rotten."

Harry raised his voice a little and said, "That's too bad. I was wanting to Snape dancing."

Ron, aghast, said, "Snape?" much to loudly in the quiet classroom.

Harry felt more than saw Snape coming up behind them and said, "You didn't know? I saw Professors Snape and Sinistra conversing beneath the stars the other night. They seemed intimate. I'm happy for him."

"Potter."

Harry turned to see an angry Severus Snape looming over him, and he noticed the whole class was watching.

Harry said, "We all support you sir. We've all seen these last five years that you have the brooding heart of a poet, and Professor Sinistra seems just the sort to give it solace."

Hermione, visible just past Snape, was giving Harry a hard look while Ron was either choking to death or holding in laughter.

A vein bulged in Snape's neck and he said, "Detention, Potter!"

Harry said, "We all at times feel ourselves to be detained by the demands of love, but in truth, does love not free us more than it imprisons us? Do not the wings of love bear more weight than a relationship weighs? Does not-"

"Detention, Potter! Detention detention detention. Tonight, this classroom, 7 O'clock, scrubbing cauldrons without magic!"

Harry's smile fled. Snape was even scarier than normal when he was angry, and Harry wondered if he'd gone too far. But he'd thought out that little speech beforehand, and hadn't been able to resist the opportunity.

That night, after dinner, he walked to the dungeons, nervous about spending an hour with an irate Severus Snape. When he got there, a row of cauldrons had been laid out along with a scrub brush and a glove.

"Occlumency?" said Harry.

"Tomorrow. Tonight, you're scrubbing cauldrons. Don't think this arrangement gives immunity to do as you'd like in my classroom."

"I'm supposed to get detentions from you."

"And I'm supposed to give you detentions when you misbehave. Get to it, unless you want another."

Harry said, "The HDA meeting is tomorrow night."

Snape was silent for a long time, just looking at him, but eventually he said, "You do need all the help you can get to survive whatever idiocy you'll get up to this year. Very well. Our occlumency session will be the night after. But for that privilege, you'll give me an extra half hour of scrubbing.

Ninety minutes later, the skin on the outside of his right index finger red from the friction, he shuffled out of potions classroom and made his way to the Gryffindor dorms.

He collapsed on his bed and thought about what sort of mask he might wear to the masquerade. He'd had two short dancing lessons with Sirius, in which they'd both spent more time laughing than dancing, and he thought himself much better prepared than last year to step to the music without stepping on anyone's feet.

He'd asked around, and while you didn't need to bring a date, most people would, and who would he ask if not Hermione? Cho came to mind, but she and Cedric were still dating. It hadn't exactly gone great with Parvati last year, and probably wouldn't go any better with Lavender Brown. Ginny? She was Ron's little sister, but when he asked himself why that mattered all he came up with was that Ron might throw a tantrum, and one of the resolutions he'd come to after reviewing his memories in the pensieve was that he wouldn't let fear of Ron's tantrums influence him anymore.

Still, he wasn't sure that Ginny's fangirl thing was really dead, even if she did talk to him normally now. He'd noticed that over the summer Eloise Midgen had dropped a few pounds and gotten control of her boils, but she was very quiet and he'd hardly ever talked to her. He'd played her at chess once, and the first word she'd spoken was check, followed by checkmate and good game.

Still, it had been a good game, and that made him wonder what a real conversation with her would be like, but he wasn't curious enough to want to ask her to the dance.

He knew Katie Bell better than any other girl but Hermione, what with them being the youngest players on the Quidditch team, but whereas knowing Hermione well made him think it might be nice to hug her and never let go, knowing Katie made him think it would be be awkward after a bit, even if the time he'd seen her in a sports bra argued it would be nice while it lasted.

He hardly knew any girls outside Gryffindor, as during lessons he'd nearly always partnered with students from his own house, but then, hardly knowing her hadn't stopped him from having a horrible crush on Cho.

He thought of Luna Lovegood, who he'd spoken to in the hallway the other day, and the idea of going with her to the dance made him grin, but he didn't consider it seriously.

He wanted to go with Hermione, who would no doubt fill him on the history of masquerades, and she had scads of time to change her mind.

He took out her unfinished birthday present, reminded himself he didn't have much time to complete it and the weekend would be busy, and he fiddled with the charms on it until he was ready for bed.

#

#

Hermione's birthday was Tuesday of the third week.

That morning, Harry wished her 'happy birthday,' and Ron got wide-eyed, then rushed off looking for the twins, which meant Ron had forgotten and was looking to get a present on the fly.

He hoped Ron would find something alright but not great.

Harry spent much of the day nervous about how she'd like her presents, wishing he'd given them to her at breakfast rather than waiting for the end of the day, and reassuring himself about his plans.

After dinner ended, Harry excused himself from Ron and Hermione, went to the basement, tickled the pear, and stepped into the kitchens. He had a short conversation with Dobby.

He hung around the ktichen longer than he needed to, because the elves were so happy to see him, but half an hour later, Harry entered the Gryffindor common room holding a white platter with a large metal mixing bowl turned upside-down over it.

He spotted Ron playing chess and Hermione at their usual table, poring over a large tome he didn't think was a textbook. He went to the corner of the room and took the mixing bowl off the platter, setting the empty bowl on the table, revealing what was beneath.

Hermione didn't especially like most cakes, so Harry had gotten the elves to make a flourless dark chocolate torte with walnut bits inside and fresh raspberries on top, to go with 16 small candles charmed to not drip any wax. He lit the candles with a spell, and walked slowly toward Hermione.

He had the idea that he should sing, but didn't.

Luckily, Ginny was braver than he. She looked up from a chair by the fire, saw what Harry was doing, and in a pleasant soprano, started on, "For she's a jolly good fellow."

Ron and Dean looked up from their chess game, and after a moment's surprise, joined in on the tune, and Harry found it much easier to sing once his voice would be only one of many.

And it was many. With a lit cake and the strains of a birthday song, everyone in the common room knew what to do, even those who didn't know whose birthday it was.

Hermione was among the last to look up. When she saw Harry approaching with the torte, she gasped, turned red, and covered her mouth, the edges of her wide, incredulous smile peeking out from behind her hand.

She pushed her books aside, and Harry set the cake on the table in front of her

Grin nearly taking in her ears, Hermione put the candles out with a spell.

Harry raised an eyebrow, and Hermione said, "It's much more hygienic than blowing."

Hermione was buffeted by the general crush of congratulations, and then the issue was raised that, while Harry had brought a cake, he hadn't brought a serving knife, plates, or forks. An issue dealt quickly with by conjuration.

Those students who knew Hermione well enough to feel that ought to be part of the birthday (and a couple who didn't) sat down with their slices, and Harry claimed the spot right next to Hermione.

"Not too sweet?" Harry asked as she bit into the cake.

"Just right," she said. Then, laughing, "You're really serious about getting me to that dance."

"I am, but this has nothing to do with that. First year, we weren't friends yet, second-year, I didn't know September 19th was your birthday until after it passed, but third and fourth-year I should've done a better job with it. Should've done this. Now that I've raised the bar, we'll have to do something similar for Ron's birthday."

She nodded. "Ron likes pie. We'll have to, Harry, how did you get me a cake?"

"Asked at the kitchens."

"The house-elves made it," she said, looking upset.

Harry said, "All the food you've ever eaten at Hogwarts, unless you brought it with you or bought it at Hogsmeade, was made by house-elves. This isn't any different, except I talked to them personally and thanked them."

Hermione said, "This was extra work for them."

"They were happy to do it. You should go down there and talk to them. It means a lot to them."

"Because they're so brainwashed that meeting a student is like meeting a demi-god for them. I know eating their food makes me complicit in their slavery, but Harry, going to them like that makes you a participant."

Harry said, "Dobby did most of the work on this, maybe all of it, and you know he's paid."

"And did you pay him for the extra labor?"

"No."

She frowned, and Harry wondered how he was going to avoid one of her lectures, and Ron saved him by setting a package on the table, wrapped in red paper.

Hermione turned to it, thanked Ron, and opened it, revealing a small case of butterbeer and a list of all of Fred and George's current products, along with how to treat their effects. Harry thought that was pretty good, considering Ron's restrictions in time and money.

While Hermione thanked Ron and looked over the list, Harry fetched his presents from the dorm, which he'd put in a festive gold box.

He gave it to her, and she opened the box, revealing the pack of self-inking, non-blotting quills she'd lusted after in Diagon Alley. She thanked him, then looked back into the box, at a square pieces of wood. She removed it from the box and unfolded in into an odd contraption. A book stand joined to a green slate, to small wooden arms with firm leather fingertips, and a folding stick with eyeglasses that had eyes drawn on them.

Harry said, "It's a word finder. You write the word or phrase you're looking for on the slate, give it to the book, and if it's anywhere in the book, the Word Finder will find it. Pretty useful for researching."

Hermione stared at him, stared at it, set the thick tome she'd been reading on the stand, and wrote, 'Prothietic imposition' on the slate. The arms came around, pages blurred, the eyes drawn on the glasses tracking rapidly back and forth, and the Finder stopped, leather finger pointing to the middle of the second paragraph on page 23.

 _So the darly, rather than a simple legalistic-linguistic imposition, is a prothietic imposition, requiring..._

"It works," said Hermione. "And it's very gentle with the pages."

"Bloody unsettling," said Ron.

"It's the best gift ever," said Hermione, and she threw her arms around Harry. "Where did you get it? I've never seen anything like it."

"It was my idea," said Harry. "Lupin and Snuffles made most of it, but I did what I could. I cut some of the runes and cast a lot of the charms."

"That must've taken hours."

He shrugged, acknowledging that it had. As her smile widened further, he knew he'd been more than forgiven for not paying Dobby.

And yet, an hour later, when the cake was eaten and they were quietly doing homework as the fire in the hearth burned low, Hermione brought it up again, if tangentially.

Hermione said, "What do you really think of S.P.E.W."

Harry hesitated. "For starters, I think Spew is a horrible name."

"It's not Spew, it's S.P.E.W."

"People will read it as spew. How about House-Elf Liberation Front? You called it that at first. People would read it as Helf. Sounds like help. That's a lot better."

Hermione said, "Liberation was a little strong. Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare is much more general. I've been looking into politics, & it's important to leave moderates room to support your more moderate proposals."

"Then get rid of Promotion, and just make it Society for Elfish Welfare. Sew. That still gets the idea across. Or replace Promotion with Advancement, and it's, well, I'm not sure how you'd pronounce S.A.E.W., but it would be much better than Spew. Come on Hermione. This is ridiculous. You're smarter than me. You know Spew is a horrible name."

"It's not—okay, it is a horrible name, but only because people are being stupid and immature."

"If people weren't being stupid and immature, and a lot worse, there wouldn't be any need to help the house-elves."

She glowered, and he was afraid they might not speak for a few days, but then she said, "I'm being right stupid, aren't I?"

Harry said, "More stubborn, I think, but yes, it's so unusual it's surreal. Though it's not quite the first time you've been silly." He raised his voice to a falsetto, imitating her in first year, and said, "We could be killed. Or worse, expelled."

Her grimace returned, and Harry snorted. "Oh, come on. Most of that year's earnestly stupid statements were made by me."

Hermione said, "How about P.A.H.E.? People for the the Advancement of House-Elves?"

Harry said, "So people would say it pa-heh? Better than Spew, but Helf and Sew are both better than it."

Hermione took out parchment, quill, and thesaurus to write the ideas down, then paused. "Are you in it? Really in it? Not just because you're my friend and you're humoring me?"

He thought of Dobby, and how Dobby had been the Malfoys' abused, terrified slave. "I think so. It's definitely not okay the way it is now. At the very least, house-elves need to be able to leave their masters if they want, and punishing them physically shouldn't be allowed. But no more trying to free them against their will. And we shouldn't assume that house-elves are just small, bat-eared humans. We need to do a lot of research on house-elves before we decide what we're really trying to do."

"In our copious free time," said Hermione.

Harry shrugged. "Quidditch practice starts Saturday. At that point, I might be even busier than you."

"We'd better do what we can now, then. What do you think the Society for the Promotion of House-Elf Rights? S.P.H.E.R. or Spher."

After an hour of brainstorming, they were ready for bed, and had about decided on Society for the Promotion of Elfish Prerogative. Prerogative wasn't the perfect word, perhaps, and Hermione had had to tell Harry what it meant, but Spep, they agreed, had a very nice ring to it.

#

#

The first meeting of the HDA had focused on Protego. The second, on Impedimenta, as it was good for dangers of all sorts. A lot of the students had hardly known them. Harry had thought it would be boring, but Moody had insisted there was plenty to gain from revising spells he was already comfortable with. Casting them more quickly and more powerfully. Making them more accurate. Controlling the shape of Protego, so it could be any thing from a small buckler of light to a more energy intensive but more secure encapsulating sphere.

Still, Harry had been excited when Moody had promised more advanced spell work for the third meeting, and was disappointed when Moody, after the physical exercises, said, "Who here can cast a Patronus?"

Only four students raised their hands. A sixth year, two seventh years, and Harry.

Moody said, "Demonstrate for the others."

Harry remembered his summer. Rolling out of bed for breakfast with Sirius and Lupin. Most often waffles with berries, bacon, and a sliced vegetable grilled into crackling anonymity. Not the healthiest of routines. Sitting in a warm room, cutting runes into Sirius's latest project, half annoyed and half pleased by the way Sirius quite intentionally tried to distract him at the most delicate moments. The three hikes they'd gone on. One on green grass hills, one through a mossy oak wood, one through a peaty wetland. Lupin bringing him clothes.

He cast the spell, and the large white stag burst out, shining brilliantly.

The sixth year and one of the seventh years had silver shields, incorporeal patronuses. The other seventh year, Alexis Shirley, the Head Girl, had a raven not so bright as Harry's stag.

Harry felt uncomfortable from all the people looking at him.

Moody raised his voice. "A patronus can drive off not just dementors, but also ghosts, wraiths and poltergeists, and is of some use against compulsion spells, particularly area effect compulsion spells. Patronuses block or damp some dark magics aimed at the mind, just as they block a dementor's chill, and they can be used as messengers. However, most of these uses require a full, corporeal Patronus, such as Potter and Shirley have managed."

Moody passed by Harry, lowered his voice, and said, "Not bad, Potter, but a Patronus isn't worth much against dementors if you need ten seconds to cast it. You have to be quick. Or better, instant."

Moody raised his voice again, giving instructions on the spell, and when Moody had them start trying, Harry practiced it as well, aiming for quickness.

He thought occlumency could help him quickly raise the needed emotions and memories.

Once Moody had the others going, he showed Harry how to use his Patronus to send a message, which, if you were already comfortable with making a Patronus, was about as difficult as a second-year charm, and Harry had it down in just a few minutes.

The messenger Patronus was on the list Sirius and Remus had made for him, and he was looking forward to scratching a line through it when he got back to his dorm.

He sent a message to Moody, at the other side of the room, and after pondering who else he knew that wasn't in the room and knew the spell, he sent Prongs to Lupin, with the message, "I've learned the Patronus Messenger spell."

Moody stumped over and said, "Potter, help the others out."

Harry nodded, and figured he'd better focus on the fifth and fourth years, as sixth-years might not like taking instruction from him, and noticed that Luna Lovegood was producing sad puffs of dim grey fog.

"Hey Luna," said Harry.

"Harry Potter," she said.

"I think you need to go a little deeper on the first downstroke, and make the V as you come back up sharper before you start the curve." He demonstrated the motion, and she corrected herself and produced a puff of mist that was only marginally less unimpressive.

Harry said, "I hope you don't mind. Professor Moody asked me to help, but I'm just-"

"I don't mind, Harry Potter."

He wondered how long she'd insist on saying his first and last name. She said it so quickly, half swallowing the Ts, that it sounded like a single name. "Right. One thing. It's not enough to think of something happy while doing the magic. You have to ground the magic in the happy memory."

Luna said, "My happiest memories make me sad. Do you think they will work?"

It was an odd thing to admit to someone she didn't know well, loudly enough that other people around them might hear, but Harry ignored that and said, "Maybe. I'd try to separate the sad parts out. If that doesn't work," his voice dropped and he leaned in and half-whispered. "When I learned it, none of my memories were happy enough, so I used happy thoughts instead. Your brain doesn't know the difference between a memory and something you imagine, unless you teach it to." Which was part of what occlumency was for. "I'm using memories now though."

Luna smiled. "I'm glad you have happier memories now. I'll imagine having a Crumple Horned Snorkack as a pet."

Harry smiled absently, wondering what that was, and, if it were large and dangerous, whether Hagrid would bring one to class. It seemed to work for her, because her next attempt at the spell produced brighter silver mist, and more of it.

"Better," said Harry. "Keep at it." He moved on to Ron and Hermione, who were both struggling with it; Hermione seemed extremely intense, and Harry had no trouble imagining why, considering her experiences with dementors, but that attitude wouldn't work.

Harry said, "You need to relax. It's a happy spell."

If looks could kill...

Harry added, "Or maybe you can have a very focused happiness, I don't know."

Ron said, "You could read a book on happiness."

Hermione gave him the look as well, Ron met it levelly, and her lips twitched.

"Sorry," she said to Harry. "I'm not used to you tutoring me. It'll take some getting used to." She ran her hands through her hair twice, and said, "Alright, I'm used to it now, what am I doing wrong?"

Harry said, "Your motion looks great, and your pronunciation sounds great." Like always. "And I assume your intention, shaping and visualization are good too," not that he could tell if they weren't, "but I think you need to let the happiness flow a little more. When you're really happy, it expresses itself without your deciding on it. You laugh or smile without thinking about it. It just comes out. You need to let it come out through your magic."

Hermione frowned, and Harry realized 'just let it come out,' was antithetical to how she'd learned every spell she'd ever learned, but Ginny called for him, so he told her and Ron to focus on the happy memory first, the spell mechanics second, then went over to help Ginny, who was doing pretty well and just needed repetition, from what Harry could see.

"Hey, Harry."

Harry looked up to see Cedric standing with Cho.

Cho had silver mist, like all the rest, but Cedric's silver mist was starting to coalesce into a large animal with four legs. It broke apart before Harry could make out what animal it was, but he hoped it wasn't a stag.

"You're doing awful well," said Harry.

"We worked on it with Professor Lupin, during my OWL year. Just a little, since we were more focused on what would actually be on the OWLs." Cedric's voice dropped as Harry got closer. "But when Professor Moody asked who knew the spell, I didn't figure managing the incorporeal form counted as knowing."

"You're just about to corporeal, so I don't think you need my help at all."

Cedric said, "Not with this. Padma's sick. Wanna take her prefect round tonight? She'd take yours later."

"Sure."

A silver wolf ran through the wall across the room, and stopped in front of Harry. Its mouth opened, a few words came out of the mouth, but the mouth itself did not move at all. "Harry," said Lupin's voice, "Well done. But don't frivolously send Patronus messengers through muggle areas. Muggles can't see them, but there are other effects."

The wolf vanished, and Cho said, "Was that Professor Lupin's voice?"

Harry said, "Er, yeah. He was friends with my parents, so, we kept in touch. A little." He was upset with himself for still being nervous about talking to Cho, about still noticing how pretty she was even though she and Cedric were clearly going out.

Harry said, "I'll just go over there and help." He pointed in a random direction, saw Neville was in that direction, and went to help Neville.

After a half hour of people struggling with the spell, with no one managing it but everyone improving, they moved onto Harry's favorite part.

Dueling. They nodded along to Moody's review of comportment, cast cushioning charms on themselves, bound their wands to the approved spell list, and formed lines outside several different dueling circles.

Most of his fellow fifth-years, hardly able to manage a protego or a stupefy, had been easy pickings the first night, with Hermione the hardest, likely do to all the help she'd help given him preparing for the third task, but even she hadn't been very good. So the second night, Harry had competed mostly against sixth-years, and had surprised himself by winning all those matches too.

Now Moody led him into a mixed group of sixth and seventh years.

The Head Girl, Alexis Shirley, and a sixth-year Puff whose name he didn't know were the first ones up, and Harry felt a little nervous watching Alexis cast her spells silently. He needed to learn to do that.

The students mostly ran the matches themselves, with Moody going from circle to circle, most of the matches quite quick. Harry narrowly beat a sixth year, and by the time he'd got his breath back, it was his turn again, against a different sixth year, who he beat more easily.

On his third time up, he faced Cedric, who he knew would be a taller task.

Cedric had turned 17 early in his sixth-year, had trained for the Tri-Wizard Tournament just like Harry, and, being of age, had got to do magic over the summer. Harry had noticed him casting spells silently.

With the Tri-Wizard co-Champions facing off, the room came to a stop, the other dueling circles abandoned, students gathering to watch.

Harry ignored the crowd and focused on Cedric's wand.

"Three, two, one, go!" they intoned together.

The instant after Harry said, 'go,' he dodged and cast Expelliarmus. Cedric cast the same while dodging and cast Stupefy, while Harry rapidly cast two quick hexes.

Cedric countered, and sent back hexes that Harry had to defend against with Protego because Cedric had cast them silently and Harry didn't know what they were.

He disillusioned himself, spun away, and for a wild moment, thought of conjuring non-venomous snakes.

Then he had to use Protego again, because his disillusionment wasn't very good.

Cedric's Stupefy made a bright flash against his shield. He darted away, casting the simplest charm on the list of useful spells Sirius and Lupin had made for him.

Visible to all was a heavy distortion in the air, like a vaguely human-shaped blob of water. A disillusionment charm failing, exactly where Harry was, still under his own disillusionment.

He darted out of it, still disillusioned. Cedric cast hexes at the distortion he thought was Harry as Harry whispered _"Stupefy."_

Harry had thought about how he would take on one of the better seventh years. Had plotted it out. And as the plot went, that was where Harry won.

But Cedric was moving even as he was casting. And he seemed to realize the mirage was just that even before his hexes went through it, his wand snapping around to cast Protego.

Harry's Stupefy missed Cedric and glanced off the edge of his shield besides. Cedric jinxed Harry's disillusionment, then cast Stupefy. Harry dodged that, but didn't get his Protego up in time to deal with a pair of rapid hexes.

One struck him, and, his fingers turned to jelly. His wand fell out of his hand, and Harry grimaced as it hit the ground.

He gritted his teeth and said, "I concede."

Cedric performed the counter charm, restoring Harry's fingers to full working order. Harry picked up his wand and bowed slightly to Cedric, who bowed back a beat later, and did not bend so much.

It was Harry's first time giving the loser's bow, and he didn't like it.

:::

It's been a long time since I last updated this. It may be a long time before the next update as well.

Monstrosity, by JLL, available for Amazon Kindle.


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